Building the linux kernel is time and resource consuming, especially when you do this in a VM guest.
fortunately, We can choose a fast Linux machine to take the burden of building, then install the kernel to the target Linux host
This simple article assumes that you know how to config and compile your custom kernel. so I will focus on building the kernel for other host.
1. Download the linux kernel from kernel.org. extract, make xxxconfig, then make, assume that the directory you build your kernel is called KERNEL_BUILD_DIR
2. create a directory to holding things that will be transfered to the target host and install.
cd KERNEL_BUILD_DIR
kversion=$(make -s kernelrelease)
mkdir $HOME/$kversion
3. Install modules to that directory
make INSTALL_MOD_PATH=$HOME/$kversion modules_install
4. Install the kernel image to that directory
make INSTALL_PATH=$HOME/$kversion install
5. Install kernel-dev files for build other module (this is optional)
Do you need things like kernel-devel package(fedora) linux-headers(Ubuntu)? if yes, download my install-kernel-dev.sh from google code. then run: (you can save this script anywhere, but you must run it from the kernel build dir)
INSTALL_PATH=$HOME/$kversion
./install-kernel-dev.sh
6. archive the resulting files
cd $HOME
tar -cjf $kversion.tar.bz2 $kversion
Copy the xxx.tar.bz2 to your target machine
7. Install on the target host
1) Install modules and headers
tar -xjf 2.6.xxx.xx.tar.bz2 # (replace xxx with your kernel version string)
cd 2.6.xxx.xx
sudo chown root:root *
sudo cp -a lib/modules/* /lib/modules/
sudo cp -a usr/src/* /usr/src/
2) Install the kernel
On Ubuntu
sudo cp System.map-* /boot/
sudo cp vmlinuz-* /boot/
sudo update-initramfs -c -k 2.6.xxx.xxx # (replace xxx with your kernel version string)
sudo update-grub2
On CentOS/Fedora
installkernel 2.6.xxx.xxx vmlinuz-* System.map-*
edit /boot/grub/menu.lst, change default=1 to default=0.
That’s all.
