How to build a fedora kernel

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If you were ever interested in building custom kernel rpms for your machine i have detailed the process here with the minimal amount of steps.

First be sure you have the needed tools

  • yum-utils
  • rpm-build

Then download the latest kernel source

yumdownloader --source kernel

Once that is downloaded lets setup our local rpm tree

rpmdev-setuptree

 

Extract and install the source

rpm -Uvh kernel-x.y.zz.ii-jjj.fcx.src.rpm

 

Execute the “%prep” stage from the spec file. Normally this involves unpacking the sources and applying any patches.

rpmbuild -bp --target=`uname -m` ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/kernel.spec

 

At this point we can setup our configuration to apply during the build.

cd ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-x.y.zz/linux-x.y.zz.`uname -m`/
make oldconfig
make menuconfig

 

copy your configuration to the sources folder.

cp .config ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/config-`uname -m`

 

and you are ready to build

rpmbuild -bb --with baseonly --without debuginfo --target=`uname -m` ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/kernel.spec

 

 

kernel-firmware
if you need to build the firmware module then change this line to this in the

~/rpmbuild/SPECS/kernel.spec
%define with_firmware  %{?_with_firmware:     0} %{?!_with_firmware:     1}

 

 

Creating Patches
if you’d like to create a working copy to apply any custom test or patches, this will allow you to create a patch for your build.

cp -r ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-2.6.26/linux-2.6.26.x86_64 ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-2.6.26.dist
cp -al ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-2.6.26.dist ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-2.6.26.new
diff -uNrp ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-2.6.26/vanilla/{file} ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-2.6.26.new/{file} > {file}.patch

 

 

3 thoughts on “How to build a fedora kernel”

  1. After all steps when I execute this command:
    cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS
    rpmbuild -bp –target=$(uname -m) kernel.spec

    it is giving following error:

    DEPMOD 2.6.38.6
    + cp /root/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/kernel-2.6.38.6-2.x86_64/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38.6
    cp: missing destination file operand after `/root/rpmbuild/BUILDROOT/kernel-2.6.38.6-2.x86_64/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38.6′
    Try `cp –help’ for more information.
    error: Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.CIXxWL (%install)

    RPM build errors:
    Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.CIXxWL (%install)

    Please tell me what is wrong with kernel.spec.

    1. those are ticks and not parentheses… the ticks will execute the uname command to determine which architecture to build auto-magically, it’s a convenience function…

      perhaps its a site font issue but that line should read :

      rpmbuild -bp –target=`uname -m` ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/kernel.spec

      cheers

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