Making an Intergalactic Libre-Kernel For Trisquel 12

video link: https://rumble.com/v6xhgu4-making-an-intergalactic-libre-kernel-for-trisquel-12.html

you can download it like this...

sudo apt install yt-dlp && yt-dlp https://rumble.com/v6xhgu4-making-an-intergalactic-libre-kernel-for-trisquel-12.html

(needs some work arounds to make it more libre friendly, the standard commands for building the kernel like olddefconfig localmodconfig make it a really fast and trivial process to build the kernel trimmed down, for like a gaming or high performance system, but definitely alter the default trisquel config, away from it's libre-kernel roots, similarly to a default linux kernel)

edit... update

So apprently this kernel configuration I demonstrate in the video actually totally breaks the kernel, and after a couple hours of playing around with it, I have no idea what it is that broken it. I build the kernel all the time for fun, and to learn more about everything, so as far as I know, from experience, it should be fine, but I unchecked some option that actually broke it in the end, and rebuilt it with an older Libre_6.12 config I made, and the intergalactic kernel is working fine... anyways, maybe I rushed to make the video, but I was just having fun.

If I ever manage to figure out how to make it libre-friendly I'll make another guide, a quick fix to do so, if anyone is interested is, I think, to simply avoid using the make olddefconfig, make localmodconfig, or any of the make *config* type commands, and stick with the libre-config that comes standard with trisquel, and let it configure hardware, then you can simply tweak the other areas for fun : D

edit... last update

possibly just avoid using make olddefconfig, and stick with make localmodconfig, and use a libre-kernel tarball that matches the version trisquel ships, and you should be good to go... (to use localmodconfig, attach, load, all the hardware you intend to use with the kernel in the future, so the kernel loads any modules that might otherwise be missing, before running make localmodconfig)

You need not build Linux-libre yourself. Jason Self kindly does it for us. He indeed administrates an APT repository with the latest LTS and STS Linux-libre kernels: https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/linux-libre/freesh

Ok, thanks for the info, I haven't tried that yet.

Now I think the proper way to do this, and keep the libre-kernel, libre

is to use trisquels Kconfig (config-6.8.0-71-generic) and to download the corresponding
tarball from fsfla, for trisquel 12, it comes with 6.8, so in order to keep the same config,
we can use only make localmodconfig. Otherwise you will start turning on support for all sorts
of wild stuff... so the commands look like this. These are the basic commands for building a custom kernel on an Ubuntu type OS... slightly modified to keep things libre : D

https://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/releases/

sudo apt install build-essential libncurses-dev bison libssl-dev libelf-dev fakeroot dwarves flex -y

tar -xf linux-libre-6.8-gnu.tar.xz

cd linux-6.8/

cp -v /boot/config-$(uname -r) .config

make localmodconfig

scripts/config --disable SYSTEM_TRUSTED_KEYS

scripts/config --disable SYSTEM_REVOCATION_KEYS

scripts/config --set-str CONFIG_SYSTEM_TRUSTED_KEYS ""

scripts/config --set-str CONFIG_SYSTEM_REVOCATION_KEYS ""

make MENUCONFIG_COLOR=blackbg menuconfig

make -j$(nproc) && make modules && make modules_install && make headers_install && make install && sync && sudo shutdown now

Yes I am trying to learn more about it, and I think building our own custom kernel is essential activity...

I'm in the power user category of Trisquel GnuLinux users, so I'm interested in learning about, playing around with, everything there is...

The guide here uses make oldconfig...
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/compiling-gnu-linux-libre-kernel

My problem is now, that typically on other distributions, it's very simple, to use the built-in facilities to quickly configure/build a custom kernel. Using make locamodconfig reduces the time to build the kernel to only 10-15 minutes, plus, the libre-kernel, is already trimmed down like 30% compared to the vanilla kernel. So by default it already takes 30% less time to configure/build.

So now I want to know, how to preserve the libre-linux alterations, without activating any non-free bits, using the typical facillities (make) for configuring/building the kernel.


user@pc:~$ find /lib/modules/6.8.0-59-generic/ -type f -iname '*.o' -or -iname '*.ko' | wc -l
6468
user@pc:~$ du -hs /lib/modules/6.8.0-59-generic/
578M /lib/modules/6.8.0-59-generic/
user@pc:~$ find /lib/modules/6.12.0-gnu.Intergalactic/ -type f -iname '*.o' -or -iname '*.ko' | wc -l
178
user@pc:~$ du -hs /lib/modules/6.12.0-gnu.Intergalactic/
18M /lib/modules/6.12.0-gnu.Intergalactic/


So now, the kernel I built with make olddefconfig (to update values from trisquels default config to support the changes between 6.8-6.12) and make localmodconfig reduced the size
of the modules directory from 578Mb to 18MB, but when you use make olddefconfig it's like running a non-free program and starts activating all sorts of wild stuff, modifying the configuration like a vanilla kernel...

Anyways so I'm trying to figure this out, how to alter the standard build process just to keep things libre.

Okay So I figured out what went wrong, for some strange reason when I was using make localmodconfig the support for my harddrive (nvme - under block devices) was being turned from a module(default) to completely off.

So in order to keep things libre I think the instructions still stand, but in that specific case, of having an nvme type drive at least, there is a bug. And simply turning that on after make localmodconfig turns it off, fixes the problem...

edit.

So I've tried building it now, using the trisquel default config, a similar libre-linux kernel, (6.8 for trisquel 12) and just make localmodconfig a few times, and it's just totally broken.. typically I build it all the time like in the first posts instructions-> make olddefconfig make localmodconfig make menuconfig, and it works every time without issues. The kernel I built in the video was made like that too, so I dont know what's happening, but apparently running make localmodconfig is making weird dramatic changes that break everything... I literally just went through this same process with trisquel 12 weeks ago, and everything was working great, then after the latest updates, I can't get it working anymore

another edit...

(might be relevant, there appears to be some major issue in Ubuntu Noble related to the kernel(called linux))

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/hard-drive-not-available-when-newly-installed-kernels-boot/65943/10

(I'm only loosely following this issue atm because I'm busy doing other things right now)
(...I've also upgraded to trisquel 11(jammy) now https://trisquel.info/en/forum/making-intergalactic-libre-kernel-trisquel-11)(dont have a testing station for 12(noble) set up atm)

Hi magic, so I spent the last two days, trying to get a working libre-kernel on trisquel 12, so now I've moved on to effectively upgrading to trisquel 11...

Can you see my videos? I recorded myself building the libre-kernel from start to finish on both trisquel 11/12

https://rumble.com/v6xjkb2-making-an-intergalactic-libre-kernel-for-trisquel-11.html

https://rumble.com/v6xhgu4-making-an-intergalactic-libre-kernel-for-trisquel-12.html

It appears to me, that recent updates to trisquel 12, have broken this standard procedure, for me, because using the exact same procedure prior to the latest updates, maybe only a week or two ago, I had no issues.

(the videos are uploaded with a free license (called "personal" license on rumble)(so im not actually sure if people can see them, it says, theyre not searchable, but I assume I can give links to people)

if you dont like proprietary websites, you can download the video's like this...

sudo apt install yt-dlp && yt-dlp https://rumble.com/v6xjkb2-making-an-intergalactic-libre-kernel-for-trisquel-11.html && yt-dlp https://rumble.com/v6xhgu4-making-an-intergalactic-libre-kernel-for-trisquel-12.html

Basically I had no problems building on 11, and had no problems on 12, until only very recently, around the time I wanted to make a video for it.

Looks like theyre making changes to the kernel in the upstream, but I haven't been able to figure out all the changes yet...

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-24-04-lts-noble-numbat-release-notes/39890

Now we've had 3 point releases already, and presumeably anyone that auto-updates ubuntu packages, has gotten all of those updates.