Building a Custom Kernel

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The steps above will create a kernel source tree in /usr/local/source. This can,

of course be any other place in the file system that seems appropriate, and

need not be /usr/local/source. This is only one of several safe places you could

put this tree. Creating the target directory and the link to it from the linux

directory allows for future kernel source trees to also install here. Setting up

the link to the target before untarring the source files makes everything end

up where it should, rather than having to rename directories after the fact.

The need for all of this stems from the fact that the source tar.gz file unpacks

itself into the local directory named  linux . This can also cause problems if

there is already a full directory named linux. With the link, there is at least

the chance of moving the link to a fresh directory before unpacking new kernel

source over the old.

If there are no patches to be applied to the source you are ready to build

a kernel. Begin by changing to the directory /usr/local/source/linux. What

gets done next depends on the state of the source tree and the desires of the

builder. If the desire is that the build process should start from the  pristine 

source, sometimes referred to as  distribution clean  then the first step is to

execute make mrproper. From here the following steps are standard:

Configure the features of the kernel via:

make config

or

make menuconfig

or

make xconfig