Lecture #14 The Linux Kernel
Learner Outcomes
- Recompile the Linux Kernel from source code.
- Install a new kernel and make it optionally bootable from LILO
- Compile and install dynamically loadable kernel modules
Activities
- Download the most recent stable version of the kernel.
- Run xconfig to configure a kernel
build.
- Compile the kernel source code and copy the new compressed kernel
to the /boot directory.
- Reconfigure grub.conf to allow booting from the new kernel.
The Linux Kernel
- Kernel Background
- Downloading the Kernel
- www.kernel.org
- Users can download either: *.tar.bz2 or *.tar.gz
- Uncompress and extract in /usr/src directory
- Make backup before extracting over existing source tree
- Upgrading to a New Kernel
- Configuring the Kernel
- make config
- make menuconfig
- make xconfig
- Compiling the Kernel
- make dep
- make clean
- make bzImage
- make modules
- make modules_install
- Patches
- Applying a Kernel Patch
- Steps and commands for downloading a patch
- Installing the Kernel
- Compiling with bzImage
- The zImage file
- Letting LILO know
- Kernel Configuration Options
- Code maturity level options
- Loadable module support
- Processor type and features
- General setup
- Memory Technology Devices
- Plug n Play configuration
- Block devices
- Networking options
- Telephony support
- ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support
- SCSI support
- I2O device support
- Network device support
- Amateur radio support
- IrDA (infrared) support
- ISDN subsystem
- Old CD-ROM drivers (not SCSI, not IDE)
- Character devices
- Multimedia devices
- File systems
- Console drivers
- Sound
- USB support
- Kernel hacking