[TriLUG] Build A Kernel

[David Rasch]

paul.cour1 at verizon.net wrote:

>I have a friends Laptop which has Fedora Core 2
>installed. Runs fine.
>
>Friend wants newer kernel.
>Downloaded 2.6.11 from kernel.orq, no problem
>got to point of "make bzImage",
>makefile starts, but gives error:
>cannot find ".config" file...
>
>using find command, tried to find
>.config file, none available,
>but did find a 
>"config-2.6.5-1358"
>
>How to proceed with kernel build?
>  
>
Paul,

Building a kernel involves a configuration step which involves about 
1000 decisions of yay or nay for different options.  The kernel which 
comes with your Fedora system differs significantly from those vanilla 
kernels you might download from kernel.org in several ways: 1. it's been 
patched significantly to include support for hardware and other 
features; it also includes fixes, security updates, and other goodness 
that you probably don't want to take the time to recreate and 2. it's 
got most every possible option enabled in order to be the swiss-army 
knife of kernels and work with almost all systems.  I've compiled many 
kernels, but to be honest, these days, I avoid it like the plague.  The 
kernels that come with distributions are created by people who know far 
more about what they're doing than I could ever pretend to know.  So 
this brings me to the question of: why does your friend feel he/se needs 
a newer kernel?  Is there some piece of unsupported hardware he/she's 
triyng to use?  Or does he/she just feel out of date?

-David