Arch Linux

playdayz

Member

Registered: 2008-01-17

Posts: 12

Simple Instrucftions to Compile Kernel?

I just recently changed from Gentoo.  I learned quite a lot from Gentoo, but I was just spending too much time compiling.  However, I did some comparisons and found the gentoo kernel compiled for my -march=athlon-xp and -O3 was significantly faster than the stock i686 kernel (from the live cd).   I run inside Virtualbox so performance is important.  For what it's worth I also found a smaller improvement by compiling xorg and kde or gnome, but no improvement compiling user programs.  Anyway, I would like to compile my ARCH kernel but I have not found the instructions--I know the linux I learned from Gentoo, but in some cases it is Gentoo Linux ;-)  I have edited my makepkg.conf to include march and O.  I have downloaded the latest kernel.  In gentoo I would then go to /usr/src/linux* and run make menuconfig.  Right now I don't really want to change the kernel options at all but just to compile it with -march=athlon-xp and -O3.  If someone will help me out with the ARCH commands I will report back about whether there is a noticeable speed improvement.  thanks.

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Simple Instrucftions to Compile Kernel?

See thread.

playdayz

Member

Registered: 2008-01-17

Posts: 12

Re: Simple Instrucftions to Compile Kernel?

Thanks, I had seen that thread but didn't think it had what I needed.  I went back and looked closer.  It seems that no matter whether I enter the commands manually or use the script, the process fails with

scripts/kconfig/conf -o arch/x86/Kconfig
drivers/crypto/Kconfig:51: can't open file "arch/s390/crypto/Kconfig"
make[1]: *** [oldconfig] Error 1
make: *** [oldconfig] Error 2

The first error I got was a missing kconfig so I installed compizconfig and that went away.  (If that is any kind of clue.) 

I appreciate the help and I will keep stumbling along until I get it.  thanks.

dyscoria

Member

Registered: 2008-01-10

Posts: 1,007

Re: Simple Instrucftions to Compile Kernel?

If you're still looking for instructions on compiling the kernel, see the wiki:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ker … rom_Source

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tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Simple Instrucftions to Compile Kernel?

Or if you want to do it The Arch Way: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cus … n_with_ABS

bwalk

Member

Registered: 2007-03-21

Posts: 177

Re: Simple Instrucftions to Compile Kernel?

The kernel does not use custom CFLAGS by default. You need an extra patch and I cannot recommend this unless you know exactly what you are doing. Also, the default kernel itself is by no means faster or slower than anything self-compiled. If you want to boost your performance, compile all installed packages on your computer with custom CFLAGS, that should give you 1-2% gain.

playdayz

Member

Registered: 2008-01-17

Posts: 12

Re: Simple Instrucftions to Compile Kernel?

I did it the Arch way.  I found the wiki on ABS and used ABS to successfully compile, install, and run a default kernel.  At the time I did not find the wiki page on compiling the kernel specifically and I certainly did not know that the kernel did not by default use the custom  CFLAGS (which was the whole point of compiling).  So now I want to take the next step and use the custom CLAGS.  .

I don't know *exactly* what I am doing, but I learn fast ;-)  It is all a learning process and if I crater the system I will reinstall it.  What I do know is that I have successfully compiled and run a kernel on Gentoo  with -march=athlon-xp and -O3.  I watched the compilation messages and it was in fact using those settings.   I understand that those are aggressive settings and something might not work (so I will keep my working kernel also)  I also know that the custom kernel seemed noticeably faster to me than the stock Gentoo i686 kernel (from the livecd).  This makes sense to me because the kernel code is run "underneath" everything else and executed more often than any other code on the machine--so a small improvement there would be "magnified."  I do agree that compiling the installed programs would not result in any noticeable speed improvement--and that is also my experience with Gentoo--no gain from compiling the user programs. 

So the bottom line now is that I have the ABS wiki page on custom compiling the kernel and the one thing I am missing is the way to tell the ABS to use CFLAGS when compiling the kernel.  Thank you to everyone who has help[ed.  I appreciate it greatly and I am becoming more and more convinced that my move to Arch was a good one.