Skip to content

Recompile your kernel

Linux

CentOS

CentOS Kernel 2.6

Debian

Here is a list of packages needed to recompile the kernel:

1
aptitude install bzip2 libncurses5-dev fakeroot kernel-package

Let's go to /usr/src:

1
cd /usr/src

Then, go to www.kernel.org and download the latest version in "Full" of the latest kernel. Here, it's version 4.8.4, then we extract it:

1
2
wget https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/linux-4.8.4.tar.xz
tar -xJf linux-4.8.4.tar.xz

Now let's create a symbolic link:

1
ln -s linux-4.8.4 linux

The kernel is ready to be configured. Let's launch the configuration tool:

1
2
cd linux
make menuconfig

Or copy the configuration of your existing kernel:

1
cp /boot/config-$(uname -r) .config

To avoid a "x509_certificate" error during compilation, we will disable the kernel signature (we don't have the signature key, it belongs to Debian):

1
2
sed -i 's/^CONFIG_SYSTEM_TRUSTED_KEY/# CONFIG_SYSTEM_TRUSTED_KEY/g' .config
sed -i 's/^CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_KEY/# CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_KEY/g' .config

It's possible to use all of your cores to speed up compilation time:

1
export CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=`grep -c "^processor" /proc/cpuinfo`

New method

Once configured, all that's left is to launch the compilation:

1
2
make clean
make deb-pkg LOCALVERSION=-custom KDEB_PKGVERSION=$(make kernelversion)-1 -j $CONCURRENCY_LEVEL

You can change the name of LOCALVERSION to a name that suits you better and increment KDEB_PKGVERSION each time you compile.

Old method

Once configured, all that's left is to launch the compilation:

1
2
make-kpkg clean
make-kpkg --initrd --revision=1.0 kernel_image

or without initrd:

1
make-kpkg --revision=1.0 kernel_image

The revision tag is used to put a version number on your kernel. That way, if during the next boot you get a kernel panic, restart with the old one and start over. When recompiling it, increment the version by 1 (ex: --revision=2.0).

Your kernel is now finished, let's install it:

1
dpkg -i ../linux-image-4.8.4_1.0_amd64.deb

Now restart your machine and boot on your new kernel :-)

Here are other documentations:
Debian Kernel 2.4
Debian Kernel 2.6

Fedora Core

Fedora Kernel

Mandriva

Mandriva Kernel

Suse

Suse Kernel

Ubuntu

Ubuntu Kernel