Kernel Compiling

Robby Tanner Robby.Tanner at lightsource.ca
Wed Jun 29 21:16:46 UTC 2005


I've just started to get my feet wet by downloading kernel sources and
compiling my first kernel.

I'm using FC3-i386 and downloaded the latest SRPMS.

A few questions:

1)  When I did a mkinitrd against the existing /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667,
the resulting initrd image was a different size then the one already in
place from the initial FC3 install.  Is that because the SRPMS have been
updated since I downloaded the ISO (which was quite some time ago)?

2)  My first step is always to try reproducing what already exists (i.e.
byte for byte identical bzImage and initrd, for example).  I just feel
better that way, starting from a known point.  I noticed some references
to a .config file that can be used, however, I couldn't find it.  Is
there a link explaining how to go about using this information?

3)  After installing the source RPM, it doesn't show up under rpm -qa, I
assume that's normal.  Then, I untarred the linux-2.6.9 archive using (I
think) tar xvj, is that right?  

4)  There was a load of .patch files in the SOURCES dir, some from pre
2.6.9 kernels.  Do I need to apply those in order before compiling?

5)  What, if anything do I do with patch-2.6.9-final.bz2 and
patch-2.6.9-final-bk2.bz2?

6)  I got a kernel and initrd generated and got it to boot, however I
received a pile of messages that don't appear when firing up one of the
stock kernels.  What have I done wrong?  A sample is provided, there
were plenty more, but these are fairly representative.

audit(1119997562.606:0): avc:  denied  { write } for  pid=2082
exe=/sbin/minilogd dev=tmpfs ino=977 scontext=user_u:system_r:syslogd_t
tcontext=user_u:object_r:tmpfs_t tclass=dir
audit(1119997562.606:0): avc:  denied  { read write } for  pid=2083
exe=/sbin/minilogd dev=tmpfs ino=978 scontext=user_u:system_r:syslogd_t
tcontext=user_u:object_r:tmpfs_t tclass=chr_file

Sorry for all the questions and much appreciation for direction to links
where I can do a little reading or the appropriate Fedora list.

Regards,
Rob






More information about the fedora-list mailing list