The Linux Kernel HOWTO

by Brian Ward, ward@blah.tu-graz.ac.at

1. Introduction

1.1 Assumptions

2. Some questions that usually come up before anything else

2.1 What does the kernel do, anyway?

2.2 Why would I want to upgrade my kernel?

2.3 What kind of hardware do the newer kernels support?

2.4 What version of gcc or libc do I need?

2.5 What's a loadable module?

2.6 How much disk space do I need?

2.7 How long does it take?

3. How to actually configure the kernel

3.1 Getting the source

3.2 Unpacking the source

3.3 Configuring the kernel

3.4 Now what? (The Makefile)

4. Compiling the kernel

4.1 Cleaning and depending

4.2 Compile time

4.3 Other ``make''ables

4.4 Installing the kernel

5. Patching the kernel

5.1 Applying a patch

5.2 If something goes wrong

5.3 Getting rid of the .orig files

5.4 Other patches

6. Additional packages

6.1 kbd

6.2 hdparm

7. Some pitfalls

7.1 make clean

7.2 Huge or slow kernels

7.3 Kernel doesn't compile

7.4 New version of the kernel doesn't seem to boot

7.5 You forgot to run LILO, or system doesn't boot at all

7.6 It says ``warning: bdflush not running''

7.7 It says weird things about obsolete routing requests

8. Tips and tricks

8.1 Redirecting output of the make or patch commands

9. Misc

9.1 Author

9.2 History and other forms of this document

9.3 To do

9.4 Contributions

9.5 Copyright notice and copying