Recompile your kernel

Linux link

CentOS link

CentOS Kernel 2.6

Debian link

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

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aptitude install bzip2 libncurses5-dev fakeroot kernel-package

Let’s go to /usr/src:

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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:

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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:

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ln -s linux-4.8.4 linux

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

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cd linux
make menuconfig

Or copy the configuration of your existing kernel:

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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):

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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:

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

New method link

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

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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 link

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

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

or without initrd:

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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:

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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 link

Fedora Kernel

Mandriva link

Mandriva Kernel

Suse link

Suse Kernel

Ubuntu link

Ubuntu Kernel