Help with understanding the bisection process

seth · Yesterday 19:09:24

@Elizabeth you can log your actions, https://man.archlinux.org/man/script.1

script -O /tmp/whatamidoinghere
# bisect bisect bisect no don't watch porn right now it will show in the log bisect bisect
exit
less /tmp/whatamidoinghere

To share larger text files see the 1st link below

Elizabeth · Yesterday 19:16:47

I didn't set the source version anywhere since the bisection guide on archwiki states I should first build the package before changing versions. Or at least that's how I understood it

seth · Yesterday 19:21:56

Where?
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel_git … art_bisect

Edit: either way you do certainly not have to build the HEAD in order to build bisection kernels

Last edited by seth (Yesterday 19:22:34)

Elizabeth · Yesterday 19:26:01

In order to bisect we are going to need to build a version of package from git. This can be accomplished by building the -git package from the AUR.

from https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bisect … s_with_Git

Okay so im guessing I wanna change something in the PKGBUILD, but im not quite sure what im supposed to change? Is it the pkgver variable or smth else?
EDIT: okay i just noticed the README file and it explicitly mentions the remote file where I can change this, give me a minute to figure out the exact version I wanna use.

Last edited by Elizabeth (Yesterday 19:35:06)

loqs · Yesterday 19:43:35

Building the first bisection point kernel for you now. Will be slower than normal as the system is also rebuilding 4k packages for python 3.15 in parallel.

Elizabeth · Yesterday 19:48:39

loqs wrote:

Building the first bisection point kernel for you now. Will be slower than normal as the system is also rebuilding 4k packages for python 3.15 in parallel.

Thank you so much for this but I also wanna ask if its okay for me to ask for help around building my own kernel/configuring it, maybe not in this thread, but I do genuinely wanna learn how to do this.

loqs · Yesterday 19:53:06

Elizabeth wrote:

Thank you so much for this but I also wanna ask if its okay for me to ask for help around building my own kernel/configuring it, maybe not in this thread, but I do genuinely wanna learn how to do this.

No problem at all. Happy to help try and explain.

seth · Yesterday 20:21:20

building my own kernel/configuring it, maybe not in this thread

There are A LOT of kernel config options if you don't just want to tweak few things away from the arch config.

zcat /proc/config.gz| wc -l

loqs · Yesterday 20:30:32

linux-mainline-7.1.r7442.g056e065a6b6e-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst linux-mainline-headers-7.1.r7442.g056e065a6b6e-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Elizabeth · Yesterday 20:46:43

Okay so I've managed to build the kernel and I have tested for my issue (yay!)
However, I am now running into another issue with building an older version to verify that it is good. Specifically what I did was go into src/linux-torvalds and do "git checkout tags/v7.1.9", and now when I run "makepkg -sef" in the PKGBUILD directory I get prompted to manually set some options.
Here is what I see specifically:

==> Making package: linux-git 7.1.8.r0.25c76bea853d-1 (Wed 16 Sep 2026 22:45:09 CEST)
==> Checking runtime dependencies...
==> Checking buildtime dependencies...
==> WARNING: Using existing $srcdir/ tree
==> Starting pkgver()...
==> Updated version: linux-git 7.1.9.r0.ffc82ed66531-1
==> Removing existing $pkgdir/ directory...
==> Starting build()...
  SYNC    include/config/auto.conf
.config:7757:warning: symbol value 'm' invalid for SND_SOC_ACPI_AMD_SDCA_QUIRKS
*
* Restart config...
*
*
* Linux guest support
*
Linux guest support (HYPERVISOR_GUEST) [Y/n/?] y
  Enable paravirtualization code (PARAVIRT) [Y/?] y
  Paravirtualization layer for spinlocks (PARAVIRT_SPINLOCKS) [Y/n/?] y
  Xen guest support (XEN) [Y/n/?] y
    Xen PV guest support (XEN_PV) [Y/n/?] y
      Limit Xen pv-domain memory to 512GB (XEN_512GB) [Y/n/?] y
    Xen PVHVM guest support (XEN_PVHVM_GUEST) [Y/n/?] y
    Enable Xen debug and tuning parameters in debugfs (XEN_DEBUG_FS) [N/y/?] (NEW)

Im not sure if this is intended or not? And if it is what am I supposed to do?

Elizabeth · Yesterday 20:50:22

loqs wrote:

linux-mainline-7.1.r7442.g056e065a6b6e-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst linux-mainline-headers-7.1.r7442.g056e065a6b6e-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Thank you for this but, and Im sorry to tell you your work has been to waste, I have decided I wanna try doing this manually just as a first dive into building the kernel before.
I hope this isn't a bummer to hear or insulting

Elizabeth · Yesterday 20:54:47

seth wrote:

building my own kernel/configuring it, maybe not in this thread
There are A LOT of kernel config options if you don't just want to tweak few things away from the arch config.
zcat /proc/config.gz| wc -l

12638

Yeah thats definitely another thread. Might do it by trying to install barebones gentoo on a usb drive cause why not

loqs · Yesterday 21:10:27

As you are using the existing src directory prepare is not run which includes running `make defoldconfig` which would set the default for all new options. Press enter to select the default value has the same effect or you could add `made defoldconfig` before `make all` in build.

Elizabeth · Yesterday 21:16:49

Ohhhhhh I didnt know about that. Ended up just running "make olddefconfig" in the src and now it seems to be compiling without issue. Will notify later on the progress of the bisect
Edit: seems to be working fine. Managed my first actual bisect, and now I just have to repeat this process a bunch. Though its a bit late rn so after this compilation ill probably go to sleep and tomorrow figure out how I can speed up the compile times.

EDIT: I followed the instructions in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Modprobed-db to disable unneeded kernel modules. Now im waiting to see how long itll take to compile in comparison / if itll work at all.
It ended up working and it made compilation times go from around 15 mins to less than 5, and package size dropped by 130mb. Time to test!

Last edited by Elizabeth (Yesterday 23:53:05)

Arch Linux

#26 Yesterday 19:09:24

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#27 Yesterday 19:16:47

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#28 Yesterday 19:21:56

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#29 Yesterday 19:26:01

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#30 Yesterday 19:43:35

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#31 Yesterday 19:48:39

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#32 Yesterday 19:53:06

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#33 Yesterday 20:21:20

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#34 Yesterday 20:30:32

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#35 Yesterday 20:46:43

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#36 Yesterday 20:50:22

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

#37 Yesterday 20:54:47

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#38 Yesterday 21:10:27

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#39 Yesterday 21:16:49

Re: Help with understanding the bisection process

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