Compiling a GNU Linux-libre kernel risky?
according to this manual: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/compiling-gnu-linux-libre-kernel , "you can optimize it for your hardware and leave out all the drivers and features you don't have use for. It's also educational to take a peek into the inner workings of GNU Linux-libre."
Why that sounds wonderful! Sign me up!
...or wait a minute.. is that risky in these Intel ME times?
I just updated to the 4.14.12-gnu kernel which was supposed to be a patch for this thing.
I love learning, and this seems like a cool thing to do for me now, to learn more about Linux-libre kernel and my own hardware. But is it risky?
Because when I follow the instructions I get to the point where asks me to either keep the local kernel or install the "maintainers package", and further in the manual they are talking about "linux-3.18.8" and stuff :/
Okay so I posted a post again without doing proper thinking on before-hand.
It seems I can follow the instructions in "compiling a GNU Linux-libre kernel" to compile my own kernel AND use the latest 4.14.13 kernel :)
Compiling Linux-libre is easy... but configuring it is not: always keep a functional kernel installed since the one you build yourself may not boot if you forgot to include essential modules for your hardware!
> Compiling Linux-libre is easy... but configuring it is not
what's what?
> always keep a functional kernel installed since the one you build yourself may not boot if you forgot to include essential modules for your hardware!
A little bit down in the https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/compiling-gnu-linux-libre-kernel they advice you to "Perhaps start with copying the config of the current kernel you're running.
make oldconfig
"
Is that it?
If you only do that, you will not learn anything. And not have a kernel that is specifically configured for your hardware. The next step, 'make gconfig' (or use whatever other interface you happen to like), is the interesting/hard part: you will be drowning into a huge amount of components to include (as modules or not) or not and will have to learn details about your hardware, about how kernels work, etc. That said, I encourage you to try. Just focus on a few things (and let the remaining as 'make oldconfig' configured them), then on a few more things, etc.
I see, thanks! :)
How the h*** do I install GTK+?
" grevengull@GG-MB-P-9:~/kernel_compiling/linux-4.14.13$ make gconfig
*
* Unable to find the GTK+ installation. Please make sure that
* the GTK+ 2.0 development package is correctly installed...
* You need gtk+-2.0, glib-2.0 and libglade-2.0.
*
make[1]: *** No rule to make target 'scripts/kconfig/.tmp_gtkcheck', needed by 'scripts/kconfig/gconf.o'. Stop.
Makefile:543: recipe for target 'gconfig' failed
make: *** [gconfig] Error 2
grevengull@GG-MB-P-9:~/kernel_compiling/linux-4.14.13$
I can't find them in the repo and the GTK+ website's explanation is totally greek to me: https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-building.html
I did not know that "make gconfig" was stuck with GTK 2 (not 3). Just use another interface. 'make xconfig' for instance.
Well that brings me to the question: How the h*** do I install the xconfig Qt thing? :p
If 'make xconfig' does not work either, use 'make menuconfig'. This one will work for sure.
Also, I provide the configs I use in a git repository.
https://jxself.org/git/?p=kernel-configs.git
It could be useful as a starting point or whatever.
nice
thanks. menuconfig worked all the time, but it hurt my eyes :p
anyway I got it to work by simply copying all the error text and paste in the duckduckgo search. which handed me two results, of which the first link (if I remember correctly) was a website called something-something-bin. And there it was all along. I would like to take this opportunity to pardon that I didn't copy the error text and paste it in the duckduckgo search before opening the post. Also thank you for the guidance.