compiling kernel the fedora way

[Phil Meyer]

Konstantin Svist wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to compile my own kernel. I want to use the default Fedora 
> version as base but tweak a few flags.
> There is a procedure which describes how to do this at 
> http://www.howtoforge.com/kernel_compilation_fedora. Unfortunately, 
> it's almost a year old.
> Is it [still] the right way to do this?
>
> Assumptions I'm making (please correct if I'm wrong):
> * loading .config (following the steps on that page) loads the default 
> Fedora-specified options, not vanilla kernel options.
> * modules will be built into a separate directory (with the word 
> "custom" in it) so they won't interfere with official Fedora kernel 
> modules. This is kind of important since I might specify some options 
> that will make my new kernel unbootable - and I want to use the 
> default as backup if that happens.
>
>
> Thanks
>

Two things not documented.

The standard config files have a header in them like this:
kernel-2.6.22.5-i686.config
has this at the top:

# i368

After you get things in place, and run the (gconfig, xconfig, etc) that 
line is stripped out.

To make additional rpmbuild runs, you need to copy the modified .config 
back to the SOURCES directory as kernel-2.6.22.5-i686.config

and DON'T FORGET to put the header back in.

Those two steps do not appear in the docs.

Good luck!