How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

sleekmason · 2018-06-09 20:46:14

I read where they added a guest driver (or just a new version?) in 4.16.
Just looked in Drivers --> virtualization, and "Virtual Box Guest integration support" was the only thing listed., . . and now enabled. Heh.

I haven't used Virtualbox in a while, so haven't kept up with the details. 4.17 is suppose to have the stable release by default. Did Debian have to patch the kernel to get virtualbox-guest-dkms to work? I'm guessing they are not alone if that is the case. My curiosity is getting the better of me. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

Edit - Just "oldconfigged" The MX kernel 4.14 or 4.15. didn't see which one came installed. The support for the driver is new in 4.16. I am compiling now with the driver enabled (module) in 4.17. Unfortunately my experience with Virtualbox is limited. Guess now is a good time to learn:) --

Installed MX - Love the grub customizer, and no noticeable delays. It's a lot snappier than I expected. Digging the Quantum Firefox browser as well. Looking forward to diving in a bit.

Last edited by sleekmason (2018-06-10 02:46:04)

sleekmason · 2018-06-12 15:02:51

I want to say again how much it is an absolute pleasure working within BunsenLabs. I don't know why there is a difference, but there is for me. It's tangible. Super glad to have found BL.

My VirtualBox foray was an interesting experience. I downloaded the 5.2.12 release from Oracle with the idea that I would install a distro other than BL in virtualbox, (antiX base), to see whether guest additions already installed would be read by the oracle version without dkms involvement.

They are, and I was able to transfer a custom kernel with both the "virtualbox guest support" under "Virtualization" and the vbox graphics support under "staging drivers" enabled in the 4.17 kernel image.

I then removed any traces of virtualbox on the system so as not to interfere with the new kernel driver. Upon reboot, the kernel wouldn't initialize, throwing an error about not not being in text mode ( ---- Any input here? I tried replacing quiet with text at the grub prompt).

I then decided to compile the kernel in the vbox environment to see if that made any difference. 24 hours of compile time later -- Nope! same error.

Guess I would need to find a distro with the 4.17 kernel by default with the support already enabled in the kernel. eh, I can wait:)

How important is any of this? Not a bit, but it was fun trying anyway. Obviously, if you need virtualbox, the right way to go is through the Debian repos.

sleekmason · 2018-06-17 15:36:45

Guide has been updated with the inclusion of how to download and compile the latest kernel source from Debian, as well as the Linux Kernel Archives.

As a side note, the first point release 4.17.1 is out. Many developers won't even touch the stable kernel until the first point release, as most wayward items are caught at this juncture:)

By the way, Did you know that the kernel releases have names too?

V

ERSION = 4
PATCHLEVEL = 17
SUBLEVEL = 1
EXTRAVERSION =
NAME = Merciless Moray

Also, the 4.18RC will be loaded soon. I do not advise using the RC candidates for compile. 4.17 was a special circumstance. That being said, Hell, have fun:)

sleekmason · 2018-07-03 13:55:55

For those that are blindly using the Liquorix kernel because of the hype. Here ya go! Those compile times are awesome! but the rest . . . well, take a look. Of course, benchmarks are not the most reliable of indicators.

https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news … .17-Kernel

I am currently testing the MUQSS Scheduler, formally known as BFS. If it performs as expected, I'll pop it into the guide on how to patch it (or anything else) into your compile.

sleekmason · 2018-07-03 18:33:06

I'm interested in the compiling times. Really good.

Used it a long time ago and thought well of it. Haven't used it for years now, nor bothered to look at the changes. maybe I should.

stevep · 2018-07-03 22:37:35

For what it's worth, the 4.17.3 kernel has made it into Sid, and I backported it for MX 17 on a vanilla Stretch pbuilder. I only bumped the kernel context switch frequency from 250 to 1000Hz and configured to use use gcc-6 instead of gcc-7. I plan to build it in my OBS repo later.

sleekmason · 2018-07-04 11:49:23

They are pretty quick keeping up with the archives. I just redid with 4.17.4 yesterday.

Been messing with plymouth a bit, and also just compiled in the boot up logos in "device drivers - graphics- goto the end. Don't know if/how they work yet.

Have you tried enabling "Mark VGA/VBE/EFI FB as generic system framebuffer"?
it's in bus options- go to the end.

Changes all the initial boot code flying by on the screen to a reasonable font. If you read the description, it also says that enabling simple frame buffer is advised, but I don't think that is true any longer, and enabling both gives buffer underrun warnings.

sleekmason · 2018-07-04 23:21:44

Just added a short section on adding patches to your kernel build. The particular patch I used for an example allows for march=native to be selected under:

Processor type and features--> Processor Family

This changes the number of possible types to well over 20, with march=native being the last available option.

No problems compiling with the patch.

The march=native option tells the GCC compiler to gather your computer hardware information, rather than depend on the pre-set types.

sleekmason · 2018-08-12 21:05:55

Linux Kernel 4.18 due to be released to stable today. https://www.kernel.org/

Per Phoronix:

Some of the most promising highlights for Linux 4.18 include:

- Initial support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC.

- 64-bit ARM has been mitigated for Spectre Variant Four via the Speculative Store Bypass Disable (SSBD) functionality, similar to x86. Meanwhile 32-bit ARM finally has Spectre V1/V2 mitigation.

- The Steam Controller kernel for easily using Valve's Steam Controller as a HID input device without needing to rely upon Steam or the user-space SC-Controller.

- BPFILTER landed as a BPF-based solution that is working to overhaul the Linux kernel's packet filtering and firewall functionality.

- The Restartable Services system call for faster user-space operations on per-CPU data.

- The AMDGPU DRM driver now supports the VegaM graphics found within Intel Kabylake-G CPUs as well as the yet-to-be-released deep-learning-focused Vega 20 graphics card.

- AMDGPU also has various power management improvements like power profiles for Vega, etc.

- The AMDKFD compute kernel driver that coincides with the ROCm user-space OpenCL stack now has support for GFX9/Vega hardware.

- V3D was merged as the driver formerly known as VC5 for supporting next-generation Broadcom VideoCore graphics... Hopefully next-generation Raspberry Pi boards will be making use of VideoCore 5 or later.

- Intel has continued work on bringing up Icelake support.

- The DM Writecache target landed that should help with caching around database type I/O workloads.

- USB 3.2 and USB Type-C improvements.

More info: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … ures&num=1

sleekmason · 2018-10-17 22:08:03

Linux Kernel version 4.19 should go stable at the beginning of next week. Find it Here:

https://www.kernel.org/

Here are a couple links for further information on new features and such:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … ures&num=1
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … Linux+4.19

sleekmason · 2018-12-21 18:26:21

Linux Kernel 4.20 should be released on Sunday. https://www.kernel.org/

More information about the latest 4.20 kernel here: https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news … t-Features
and:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … ures&num=1

johnraff · 2018-12-22 01:27:18

Thanks for the update!

sleekmason · 2019-03-03 21:50:42

Linux Kernel version 5.0 should be out today. Get it Here: https://www.kernel.org/

Here is a list of interesting features: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … ghts-Recap

It looks like 5.1 will have a few new features as well: https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news … Kernel-Day

Last edited by sleekmason (2019-03-03 21:52:02)

sleekmason · 2019-05-03 12:39:33

Linux Kernel 5.1 will be released on Sunday, May 5th. Get it here: https://www.kernel.org/

For a bit more info on 5.1: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … ures&num=1

DeepDayze · 2019-05-04 02:15:21

sleekmason wrote:

Linux Kernel 5.1 will be released on Sunday, May 5th. Get it here: https://www.kernel.org/
For a bit more info on 5.1: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … ures&num=1

Should be able to build 5.1 on Stretch.

sleekmason · 2020-08-13 17:04:16

I am trying to use gcc 10.1 compiled from source to compile the 5.8 kernel. (this will allow for some patches I am interested in.:)

Looks like everything went well, and a folder was created in home for my new version:

~/GCC-10.1.0

I have tried to direct the new path from the kernel directory by:

sleekmason@ai:~/kernels/linux-5.8.1$ export PATH=$PATH:~/GCC-10.1.0/bin

but this doesn't seem to work when checked:

sleekmason@ai:~/kernels/linux-5.8.1$ gcc --version
gcc (Debian 8.3.0-6) 8.3.0

Any advice here would be appreciated.

The other method is to use gcc from unstable (haven't checked version), and use: update-alternatives --config gcc , to change when needed. This way seems a bit unnecessary if I can get this to work properly.

DeepDayze · 2020-08-13 19:14:44

Be warned: if you compile a kernel with a newer compiler than on Stable it most likely won't run on Stable.

sleekmason · 2020-08-13 19:28:35

DeepDayze wrote:

Be warned: if you compile a kernel with a newer compiler than on Stable it most likely won't run on Stable.

Why would it matter which version of GCC it was compiled with? .config doesn't change.

Edit* I have built a bunch of kernels for android on this computer. Seems like that change would be even bigger:) My understanding is that the GCC code gets optimized, in turn making for a better optimized kernel. I don't understand how it could affect the actual setting of the kernel, as those are dictated by computer hardware, system calls, bios, etc . . .

Last edited by sleekmason (2020-08-13 20:01:46)

johnraff · 2020-08-14 00:47:36

sleekmason wrote:

I have tried to direct the new path from the kernel directory by:
sleekmason@ai:~/kernels/linux-5.8.1$ export PATH=$PATH:~/GCC-10.1.0/bin
but this doesn't seem to work when checked:
sleekmason@ai:~/kernels/linux-5.8.1$ gcc --version
gcc (Debian 8.3.0-6) 8.3.0
Any advice here would be appreciated.

This is because you're appending the path to gcc to PATH. The system uses the first instance of a command that it finds, which will be the regular gcc in this case. Check with

which gcc

To give your custom path precedence it needs to come first in PATH, thus:

export PATH=~/GCC-10.1.0/bin:$PATH

sleekmason · 2020-08-14 01:26:44

Thank you johnraff. Unfortunately, that doesn't do the trick either.

sleekmason@ai:~/kernels/linux-5.8.1$ export PATH=~/GCC-10.1.0/bin:$PATH
sleekmason@ai:~/kernels/linux-5.8.1$ gcc --version
gcc (Debian 8.3.0-6) 8.3.0
sleekmason@ai:~/kernels/linux-5.8.1$ which gcc
/usr/bin/gcc

sleekmason@ai:~$ ls GCC-10.1.0
bin  include  lib  libexec  share

#41 2018-06-09 20:46:14

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#42 2018-06-12 15:02:51

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#43 2018-06-17 15:36:45

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#44 2018-07-03 13:55:55

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#45 2018-07-03 18:33:06

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#46 2018-07-03 22:37:35

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#47 2018-07-04 11:49:23

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#48 2018-07-04 23:21:44

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#49 2018-08-12 21:05:55

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#50 2018-10-17 22:08:03

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#51 2018-12-21 18:26:21

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#52 2018-12-22 01:27:18

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#53 2019-03-03 21:50:42

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#54 2019-05-03 12:39:33

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#55 2019-05-04 02:15:21

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#56 2020-08-13 17:04:16

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#57 2020-08-13 19:14:44

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#58 2020-08-13 19:28:35

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#59 2020-08-14 00:47:36

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

#60 2020-08-14 01:26:44

Re: How To - Kernel Compile With Custom Options

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