Today, I built the mainline kernel v2.6.33.4 on Lucid. Most instruments were taken from here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/GitKernelBuild:

1. Unpack:

2. Config:

The last line is optional. The wiki said:

Note that Ubuntu kernels build with debugging information on, which makes the resulting kernel modules (*.ko files) much larger than they would otherwise be (linux-image*.deb will be 200-300 MB instead of 20-30 MB). To turn this off, go into “Kernel hacking”; then, under “Kernel debugging”, turn off “Compile the kernel with debug info”.

It’s outdated maybe. When building kernel 2.6.24.x in Hardy, It WAS 200-300MB. But in Lucid, it is always 20-30MB. When you turn off the option, the build process took 80min instead of 100min, and 800MB instead of 5G storage. The option is configured by “CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL” in .config file.

3. Build:

After all, two files were generated. It contains 2772 modules. You may find the usage of “–append-to-version” and “–revision” options here:
*) linux-headers-2.6.33.4-custom_2.6.33.4-1_i386.deb
*) linux-image-2.6.33.4-custom_2.6.33.4-1_i386.deb

4. Install:

The last 2 lines are NOT mentioned in the wiki. They are used to generate the initrd image in Lucid. The build also do not generate abi and vmcoreinfo files in /boot.

5. Reference:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9120942

It seems a little easier when building Lucid kernel from ubuntu source.

1. Tools:

2. Sources:

3. Customize:

cd into “linux-2.6.32” root.

I selected “core2” as my custom name.

Then patch some files:

*) debian.master/etc/getabis:
From: getall i386 generic generic-pae 386
To: getall i386 generic generic-pae 386 core2

*) debian.master/rules.d/i386.mk:
From: flavours = generic generic-pae 386
To: flavours = generic generic-pae 386 core2

Now, edit the config file. You will have to go through all the flavors for this script to work properly:

You should not make changes to any of the configurations until you see the core2 configuration:

I disabled the “Kernel hacking ==> Kernel debugging” feature to accelerate build process. If you got the error like:

Simply add the x permission to all scripts, it’s a known bug:

4. Build:

If you got the error like:

Add option “skipmodule=true” to the last command line. If you got:

Add option “no_dumpfile=true” to the last command line. And there will be no vmcoreinfo-2.6.32-22-core2 file.

5. Done:

I found that Lucid has 2675 driver modules while Hardy has only 1921. It seems the kernel was greatly enhanced between the two releases.

My T60 has a Duo Core 1.83G CPU. It took about 90 minutes to finish. The kernel also consumed about 4G storage T.T. After all, two *.deb files were generated:
*) linux-headers-2.6.32-22-core2_2.6.32-22.33_i386.deb
*) linux-image-2.6.32-22-core2_2.6.32-22.33_i386.deb

6. Others:

Since the build process used so much storage, I was monitor my available disk space from time to time using “df” utility. I found the “free space” is about 500M larger than “available space”. What happened? Then I found the answer here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=328786&page=3
. We can use “tune2fs” utility to set the size of reserved space:

Set the percentage of the filesystem which may only be allocated by privileged processes. Reserving some number of filesystem blocks for use by privileged processes is done to avoid filesystem fragmentation, and to allow system daemons, such as syslogd(8), to continue to function correctly after non-privileged processes are prevented from writing to the filesystem. Normally, the default percentage of reserved blocks is 5%.

7. Reference:
– https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Kernel/Compile
– http://blog.avirtualhome.com/2010/05/05/how-to-compile-a-ubuntu-lucid-kernel/