When talking with a linux user you might have heard him referring to ‘kernel compiling’ as a cool thing he would like to do but a bit frustrating also. The Linux kernel is the heart of Linux OS. So kernel compiling is a serious thing to mess with.

Before compiling your own kernel you should know really well what your computer’s hardware is. This way you can exclude from the kernel all the modules and drivers you don’t need and thus making your kernel smaller and your system faster!

Here I’ll show you how to compile a kernel of the 2.6.x series. The whole procedure consists of the following steps

Pretty simple, isn’t it?!

Now let’s give some more specific details on what the above commands do. You should be root when running these commands.

First go to the above link and find the latest kernel version. Lets assume that it is linux-x-new.tar.gz

 
Download it using wget

 
And copy it under /usr/src

Go to this directory

 
And extract the kernel from the compressed file. This command will create a new folder called linux-x-new

 
This command copies all the configuration from your old kernel to the new one. This way you have a good starting point and you don’t have to configure everything from the beginning!

 
Now go to the directory that contains your new kernel

And get your old configuration 

If you have qt libraries installed on your system run # make xconfig. This is the graphical configuration system through which you will make all the necessary changes in your kernel. If you have only ncurses installed you may run # make menuconfig 

When you have configured everything run make to start compiling your kernel 

 
Then run make modules_install to install your new modules created above.

 
And finally create all the necessary files under /boot and also configure grub to include your new kernel

 
Reboot and from grub choose the new kernel! If anything goes wrong it means you have made a mistake in the kernel configuration. Boot in with your old kernel and run again make xconfig to do the appropriate changes.

Well, it is simple, eh? ;)

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old.uncle said:

Hello, Thanks for your very usefull guides! I am new in linux and use your gudes very often! Currently I use Fedora 9 (Kernel V.2.6.26.5-45.fc9.x86_64) and wanted to recompile it using this guid... but I stuck here> # cp linux-x-old/.config linux-x-new/.config my result: [root@UNCLEZ src]# cp linux-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.x86_64/.config linux-2.6.26/.config cp: cannot stat `linux-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.x86_64/.config': No such file or directory Any ideas?

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September 30, 2008
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axel said:

	Strange. It says there is no .config file inside your current linux kernel directory. Please post the output of this command: ls -a /usr/src/linux-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.x86_64/
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October 01, 2008
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old.uncle said:

	Hello, Thanks for your response. Here is the output: [zz@UNCLEZ ~]$ ls -a /usr/src/linux-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.x86_64/ ls: cannot access /usr/src/linux-2.6.26.5-45.fc9.x86_64/: No such file or directory
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October 04, 2008
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axel said:

	I just checked a Fedora 9 installation and noticed that they have moved kernels from /usr/src to /usr/src/kernels. So cd /usr/src/kernel and then copy the .config file. For any other questions please use our Forum. It's easier answering questions there.
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October 04, 2008
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old.uncle said:

	Thank you Axel!
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October 04, 2008
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