this is obsolete doc -- see http://doc.nethence.com/ instead

Custom Linux kernel configuration (2.6) 

Introduction 

Although 'oldconfig' or 'silentoldconfig' are supposed to be used to upgrade the kernel by skipping the existing settings, I simply use those targets to deal with driver dependencies, as I edit the ‘.config’ file directly. 

Base configuration 

cd /usr/src/linux/

make distclean

ls -l *.config*

ls -al *config*

make defconfig

mv -f .config .config.defconfig.dist

# AMD64/EM64T 64-bit

sed '/^CONFIG_GENERIC_CPU/d' .config.defconfig.dist > .config

make silentoldconfig

# AMD 32-bit

#cat >> .config <<EOF9

#CONFIG_MK8=y

#CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=y

#EOF9

#make silentoldconfig

# File systems, NFS, Samba client, network bridging

# Note. ACL and SECURITY are already enabled for EXT3.

# Note. BSD_DISKLABEL is already enabled.

# Note. FUSE_FS for NTFS-3G

cat >> .config <<EOF9

CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y

CONFIG_EXT3_FS=y

CONFIG_EXT4_FS=y

CONFIG_EXT4_FS_POSIX_ACL=y

CONFIG_EXT4_FS_SECURITY=y

CONFIG_FUSE_FS=y

CONFIG_UFS_FS=y

CONFIG_NFSD=y

CONFIG_NFSD_V3=y

CONFIG_NFSD_V3_ACL=y

CONFIG_NFSD_V4=y

CONFIG_CIFS=y

CONFIG_BRIDGE=y

EOF9

make silentoldconfig

#grep BSD_DISKLABEL .config

Hardware specific 

See [Hardware specific Linux kernel configurations] (http://pbraun.nethence.com/doc/sysutils_linux/kernel_hardware.html) 

XEN domain 0 kernel 

#

# XEN domain 0

#

# Note. Those are built-in as modules for the XEN Python scripts to work.

cat >> .config <<EOF9

CONFIG_DUMMY=m

CONFIG_TUN=m

CONFIG_BONDING=m

EOF9

make silentoldconfig

cat >> .config <<EOF9

CONFIG_PARAVIRT_GUEST=y

CONFIG_XEN=y

CONFIG_XEN_DOM0=y

CONFIG_XEN_NETDEV_BACKEND=y

CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_BACKEND=y

CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_TAP=y

CONFIG_XEN_GNTDEV=y

CONFIG_XEN_PLATFORM_PCI=y

EOF9

make silentoldconfig

Compilation and installation 

Eventually add some tag to the kernel name which prints with uname, 

mv Makefile Makefile.dist

sed 's/^EXTRAVERSION = \(.*\)$/EXTRAVERSION = \1.custom/' Makefile.dist > Makefile

#sed 's/^EXTRAVERSION = \(.*\)$/EXTRAVERSION = \1.xen/' Makefile.dist > Makefile

and proceed with the compilation, 

# Note. -j twice the number of cores

(( jobs = `grep ^processor /proc/cpuinfo | wc -l` * 2 ))

echo jobs: $jobs

time nice make -j$jobs

unset jobs

version=`grep version .config | awk '{print $NF}'`

echo version: $version

# Note. I am assuming the EXTRAVERSION has been added.

ls -lkd /lib/modules/$version.custom/

rm -rf /lib/modules/$version.custom/

#ls -lkd /lib/modules/$version.xen/

#rm -rf /lib/modules/$version.xen/

unset version

make modules_install

cp -f arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz.custom

#cp -f arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz.xen

Boot loader 

# Note. There is no seperate /boot partition.

grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda

cd /boot/grub/

mv -f grub.cfg grub.cfg.old.`date +%s`

cat > grub.cfg <<EOF9

# Note. acpi_enforce_resources=lax for the IT87 sensor not to conflict with

# ACPI.  acpi=off works too.

# lala=lala as a workaround against a bug in the very early versions of Grub2

# (1.98).  The first kernel argument used to be omitted.

set default=XEN

set timeout=3

menuentry Linux {

        insmod ext2

        set root=(hd0,1)

        linux /boot/vmlinuz lala=lala root=/dev/sda1 ro acpi_enforce_resources=lax

}

menuentry Linux.custom {

        insmod ext2

        set root=(hd0,1)

        linux /boot/vmlinuz.custom lala=lala root=/dev/sda1 ro acpi_enforce_resources=lax

}

# Note. Change dom0_mem accordingly.

menuentry XEN {

        insmod ext2

        set root=(hd0,1)

        multiboot /boot/xen.gz lala=lala dom0_mem=1024M

        module /boot/vmlinuz.xen lala=lala root=/dev/sda1 ro nomodeset noreboot

acpi_enforce_resources=lax

}

EOF9

Ready to go 

sync

shutdown -r now

References 

Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux Kernel in a Nutshell, O'Reilly Media, 2007