HOWTO: Kernel Compilation for Newbies

[matthew]

I just tried to recompile the breezy kernel but I run into the following error after doing 'sudo make oldconfig':

ivo@s021407:/usr/src/linux$ sudo make oldconfig
Password:
/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 11: gcc-3.4: command not found
/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 12: gcc-3.4: command not found
  HOSTCC  scripts/basic/fixdep
/bin/sh: gcc-3.4: command not found
make[1]: *** [scripts/basic/fixdep] Fout 127
make: *** [scripts_basic] Fout 2

This kinda makes sense since I only have gcc-4.0 installed and not gcc-3.4, do I really need gcc-3.4 to compile the kernel? I thought breezy was supposed to be compiled with gcc-4.0. Anyway let me know if you know of a way to fix this, thanks.

Oh, man. My bad earlier. I said I used the howto and it worked with Breezy--that was true. I did need to make a modification, though. (I've edited my post above so this fact is known.) I forgot that I needed to install gcc-3.4 to do it. It's in the repos. The thing is almost everything in Breezy is compiled with 4.0, but the kernel still needs 3.4. Better add that to the list of things to install at the beginning of the guide.

[tseliot]

Oh, man. My bad earlier. I said I used the howto and it worked with Breezy--that was true. I did need to make a modification, though. (I've edited my post above so this fact is known.) I forgot that I needed to install gcc-3.4 to do it. It's in the repos. The thing is almost everything in Breezy is compiled with 4.0, but the kernel still needs 3.4. Better add that to the list of things to install at the beginning of the guide.

You're right, I had to do almost the same thing when adapting my nvidia drivers guide to Breezy.

[tseliot]

I just tried to recompile the breezy kernel but I run into the following error after doing 'sudo make oldconfig':

ivo@s021407:/usr/src/linux$ sudo make oldconfig
Password:
/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 11: gcc-3.4: command not found
/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 12: gcc-3.4: command not found
  HOSTCC  scripts/basic/fixdep
/bin/sh: gcc-3.4: command not found
make[1]: *** [scripts/basic/fixdep] Fout 127
make: *** [scripts_basic] Fout 2

This kinda makes sense since I only have gcc-4.0 installed and not gcc-3.4, do I really need gcc-3.4 to compile the kernel? I thought breezy was supposed to be compiled with gcc-4.0. Anyway let me know if you know of a way to fix this, thanks.

Open Terminal or Konsole and type:

sudo apt-get install gcc-3.4

Then try the compilation again.

But I think the repositories are down at the moment

[herot]

tselliot

when i do:

apt-get install linux-k7

it doesn't recompile the kernel does it??
doesn't it just give me a new kernel version with all my old settings?

[tseliot]

tselliot

when i do:

apt-get install linux-k7

it doesn't recompile the kernel does it??
doesn't it just give me a new kernel version with all my old settings?

It installs a new kernel with the default settings of Ubuntu kernels (which can be your old settings too if you are currently using an Ubuntu kernel).

In other words if you are using the kernel which comes with Ubuntu you will have the same settings when you install any other kernel from ubuntu repositories (like "linux-k7" kernel)

[TiMBuS]

Because I need to compile kernel modules for my modem, I kinda find it difficult to update through repositories...

Can you give me a link to a .deb package for gcc-3.4? That would be very appreciated. Thanks!

[tseliot]

Because I need to compile kernel modules for my modem, I kinda find it difficult to update through repositories...

Can you give me a link to a .deb package for gcc-3.4? That would be very appreciated. Thanks!

Get to this link:
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gcc-3.4/

and download the following files according to your architecture (i386, k7,etc.)

gcc-3.4-base_3.4.4-6ubuntu8_your_architecture.deb
gcc-3.4_3.4.4-6ubuntu8_your_architecture.deb

[Juippisi]

Firstly: Thanks for the howto.

Secondly: Sight... having some problems . I have readed every post in this thread and found nothing so far.

Ok, so I have tried to compile 2.6.13.4 and 2.6.13-ck8 (downloaded from the internet, extracted and so on) but neither of them worked. They compiled well, but on the boot both said something like "kernel: device-mapper: dm-linear: Device lookup failed" (Copter had the same problem) and neither of them mounted my hdb partitions. Still hda has DMA enabled, so it can't be that.

Yes, both booted so I could use my Linux, but all my important files are on hdb1 partition so I can't do anything reasonable with it.

Dmesg doesn't say much that why they won't mount so I'm pretty confused with this problem. Not to mention that I haven't had similar problem ever with other distributions.

I have enabled ext3 and reiserfs supoorts to the kernel (hdb's are ext3, root is reiserfs).

So, No 'll just have to use this default-kernel which is slow compared to -ck what I have get used to use .

I'm using Kubuntu 5.10, if that tells something to you. And no, I'm not changing my (K)Ubuntu away so easily, there has to be some answer for this. Do I miss some principal support from kernel which I don't know about? Hope that you guys know better .

[TiMBuS]

Get to this link:
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gcc-3.4/

and download the following files according to your architecture (i386, k7,etc.)

gcc-3.4-base_3.4.4-6ubuntu8_your_architecture.deb
gcc-3.4_3.4.4-6ubuntu8_your_architecture.deb

Thank you very much! That helped me out alot!

[tseliot]

Firstly: Thanks for the howto.

Secondly: Sight... having some problems . I have readed every post in this thread and found nothing so far.

Ok, so I have tried to compile 2.6.13.4 and 2.6.13-ck8 (downloaded from the internet, extracted and so on) but neither of them worked. They compiled well, but on the boot both said something like "kernel: device-mapper: dm-linear: Device lookup failed" (Copter had the same problem) and neither of them mounted my hdb partitions. Still hda has DMA enabled, so it can't be that.

Yes, both booted so I could use my Linux, but all my important files are on hdb1 partition so I can't do anything reasonable with it.

Dmesg doesn't say much that why they won't mount so I'm pretty confused with this problem. Not to mention that I haven't had similar problem ever with other distributions.

I have enabled ext3 and reiserfs supoorts to the kernel (hdb's are ext3, root is reiserfs).

So, No 'll just have to use this default-kernel which is slow compared to -ck what I have get used to use .

I'm using Kubuntu 5.10, if that tells something to you. And no, I'm not changing my (K)Ubuntu away so easily, there has to be some answer for this. Do I miss some principal support from kernel which I don't know about? Hope that you guys know better .

I suggest you to install Kubuntu Breezy. Perhaps you won't have to recompile your kernel and BTW it's great.