[CentOS] newbie kernel question

Sun Apr 2 01:33:58 UTC 2006
Kevin K <k_krieser at sbcglobal.net>

On Apr 1, 2006, at 3:55 PM, Ian mu wrote:

> I go along with that. Will be heading down this road myself in the  
> not too distant future and be needing a recompile of the kernel,  
> and for some reason its all very cloak and dagger and misdirection.
>
> I fully understand and agree with the most of the points raised  
> earlier, thats not in question. Sometimes people would just like a  
> straightforward answer though or a reference to a page. If there  
> isn't one and no one knows how to do something then fine, but thats  
> rarely the case.
>
> Thanks for those links, will hopefully help when have to tackle  
> this myself.
>
>
> On 4/1/06, Bogdan Nicolescu <bo2k2 at yahoo.com> wrote: Nick,
>
> The question of kernel compilation is a periodic
> question, and usually the answer will be anything else
> except the process itself.  I asked the same question
> just a couple of days ago. Don't bother wasting time
> waiting for an answer, and start searching the web.
> rpmbuild seems to be part of the method required for a
> custom kernel.
>
> The irony is that for a distributions which prides
> itself to be a recompilation of another distribution
> (RH) (and we're all grateful for that), the process of
> recompiling one of the integral part of the
> districtution, the kernel, is one of the best kept
> secrets.  Why can't some just give a straight answer
> or point to a page that has the answer?
>
> Anyway, I have searched, and found this guides which
> might help:
>
> http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/errata/#sn-kernel
>
> and
>
> http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-kernel-fc4.html
>
> Didn't have the time to try it out yet myself.  Next
> week sometimes.
>
>
> --- Nick Smith <nick.smith79 at gmail.com > wrote:
>
> > Im sorry if this is a newb question, but how do you
> > recompile the
> > kernel in CentOS 4.3? I need to add reiserfs support
> > (even though the
> > setup detected it) the kernel it gave me didnt have
> > support for
> > reiserfs, and my entire fileserver is all reiserfs.
> > I tried the
> > gentoo way, which im use to and it bombed.  What do
> > i need to do? does
> > it install kernel source by default? I couldnt find
> > any good
> > documentation on the subject, and this is my first
> > RH type install.
> >
> > thanks
> >
> > Nick

For what it's worth, some stuff may be broken that would work with a  
vanilla kernel, because Red Hat is making changes targeting their  
supported versions and customers.

About a month ago, I was trying to make a tiny 2.6 based kernel for a  
floppy boot, and decided to use the latest Red Hat kernel.  When I  
got around to compiling it, it kept on failing, I believe in the  
memory management code.  I finally gave up and used a vanilla  
kernel.  Later, while trying to make another custom kernel, it came  
back when I was making smaller changes trying to create a kernel that  
would support older, obsolete computers like Pentiums and earlier  
with 128MB of RAM.  It turned out to be the option for computers with  
< 1GB of RAM.  But, since 586 computers are not a supported  
configuration, and since it IS an Enterprise OS, they have figured  
that computers running their OS would be better configured.

Now, this was an easy problem to see, since the compile would fail.   
Other possibilities is that an OS would compile, but have a subtle  
error.