Arch Linux

eldragon

Member

From: Buenos Aires

Registered: 2008-11-18

Posts: 1,029

proper way to build a custom kernel

i dont know if this post belongs here or not... but ive been wondering if im doing things correctly...

im trying to learn.. so i patch, build and test. tbh, all patches are taken from bug reports. but love it when stuff gets fixed and i can report back to the dev .

now, building the kernel takes hours, and right now im just patching a small file in the i915 driver thats supposed to fix suspend for KMS. to do this i follow these steps

# abs
$ cp -R /var/abs/testing/kernel26 ~/src/
$ cd ~/src/kernel26
edit pkgbuild, include the patch line in the build() function
$ makepkg

this builds the entire kernel, but its clear i only need the modified i915.ko module.

my question is: is there a way to have certain modules built only? then i could replace them manually and get on with it? or do i need to recompile the entire thing every time i test out a patch?

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,356

Re: proper way to build a custom kernel

Off-hand, yes, you can. That's the same thing done with Virtualbox and nvidia's kernel module.

How, I don't know, sorry to say . Maybe you'd want to look at the respective PKGBUILDs, though I'm pretty sure they only call built-in methods in either binary.

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eldragon

Member

From: Buenos Aires

Registered: 2008-11-18

Posts: 1,029

Re: proper way to build a custom kernel

well, i believe all those modules being built should not need to be built again.... the problem is i dont know how to skip them and use the old object files.... anyone got a clue?