yah hoo wrote: > newbie kernel compile > > what I'm trying to do- > reconfigure kernel for home pc > > what I've done so far- > googled and fedora archived for relevant instructions > > I know abou the commands > Make menuconfig; xconfig; gconfig; oldconfig. I know > about redirecting output to a 'build' directory: (make > 0=output/dir...) as I have read docs. and RH9 Bible by > Negus. + postings, - but none of this jives together. > > But what should I do before the above commands? First you need to grab a copy of the Linux source code. Either download a Linus version from a mirror of kernel.org, or install a kernel-source RPM or a kernel RPM. Which is up to you. I tend to stick to Linus' kernels: if you do that, cd somewhere where you want to build it, and run tar jxvf /path/to/linux-2.6.n.tar.bz2 or tar zxvf /path/to/linux-2.6.n.tar.gz (depending on what you've downloaded). Then cd into the directory that's just been created. If you've installed an RPM, then cd to /usr/src/linux-2.6.*. Then run ONE of the make commands. Since you're doing this to learn, I'd recommend make xconfig or make gconfig since they give you the easiest access to help files, but you get to make all the choices. As always, case is important. It's not that hard: chances are you'll miss something, or you'll want to tweak your choices, so expect to have two or three goes for the first few kernels you compile. But the build system makes it difficult to make too many mistakes, apart from the obvious ones like forgetting to compile support for your hard disk adapter or ext3. Good luck! James. -- E-mail address: james@ | "Minis on the other hand are just the wrong size. Too westexe.demon.co.uk | small to work on directly and too large to put | upside down on the workbench." | -- stevo at madcelt.org