The Linux Kernel HOWTO

Brian Ward, bri@cs.uchicago.edu

1. Introduction

• 1.1 Read this first! (I mean it)
• 1.2 A word on style

2. Important questions and their answers

• 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 and 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 util-linux
• 6.3 hdparm
• 6.4 gpm

7. Some pitfalls

• 7.1 make clean
• 7.2 Huge or slow kernels
• 7.3 The parallel port doesn't work/my printer doesn't work
• 7.4 Kernel doesn't compile
• 7.5 New version of the kernel doesn't seem to boot
• 7.6 You forgot to run LILO, or system doesn't boot at all
• 7.7 It says `warning: bdflush not running'
• 7.8 I can't get my IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive to work
• 7.9 It says weird things about obsolete routing requests
• 7.10 Firewalling not working in 1.2.0
• 7.11 ``Not a compressed kernel Image file''
• 7.12 Problems with console terminal after upgrade to 1.3.x
• 7.13 Can't seem to compile things after kernel upgrade
• 7.14 Increasing limits

8. Note for upgrade to version 2.0.x, 2.2.x

9. Modules

• 9.1 Installing the module utilities
• 9.2 Modules distributed with the kernel

10. Tips and tricks

• 10.1 Redirecting output of the make or patch commands
• 10.2 Conditional kernel install
• 10.3 Kernel updates

11. Other relevant HOWTOs that might be useful

12. Misc

• 12.1 Author
• 12.2 To do
• 12.3 Contributions
• 12.4 Copyright notice, License, and all that stuff