Chapter 9. Debian and the kernel

50

Detailed instructions for using the

kernel package

package are given in the file

/usr/share/doc/kernel package/README.gz

. Briefly, one should:

  Unpack the kernel sources, and

cd

to the newly created directory.

  Modify the kernel configuration using one of these commands:

make config

(for a tty one line at a time interface).

make menuconfig

(for an ncurses based menu driven interface). Note that to use

this option, the

libncurses5 dev

package must be installed.

make xconfig

(for an X11 interface). Using this option requires that relevant X

and Tcl/Tk packages be installed.

Any of the above steps generates a new

.config

in the top level kernel source directory.

  Execute the command:

make kpkg  rev Custom.N kernel_image

, where N is a

revision number assigned by the user. The new Debian archive thus formed would have

revision Custom.1, e.g.,

kernel image 2.2.14_Custom.1_i386.deb

for the Linux

kernel 2.2.14.

  Install the package created.

Run dpkg   install /usr/src/kernel image VVV_Custom.N.deb

to in 

stall the kernel itself. The installation script will:

* run the boot loader, LILO (if it is installed),

* install the custom kernel in /boot/vmlinuz_VVV Custom.N, and set up appro 

priate symbolic links to the most recent kernel version.

* prompt the user to make a boot floppy. This boot floppy will contain the raw

kernel only. See `How can I make a custom boot floppy?' on this page.

  To employ secondary boot loaders such as

grub

or

loadlin

, copy this image to

other locations (e.g., to /boot/grub or to an

MS DOS

partition).

9.3 How can I make a custom boot floppy?

This task is greatly aided by the Debian package

boot floppies

, normally found in the

admin

section of the Debian FTP archive. Shell scripts in this package produce boot floppies

in the

SYSLINUX

format. These are

MS DOS

formatted floppies whose master boot records

have been altered so that they boot Linux directly (or whatever other operating system has

been defined in the syslinux.cfg file on the floppy). Other scripts in this package produce

emergency root disks and can even reproduce the base disks.

You will find more information about this in the

/usr/doc/boot floppies/README

file

after installing the

boot floppies

package.