8.3 Building and Installing a Custom Kernel

To build a custom kernel you have to fulfil some requirements:

• Simple knowlidge of Kernel configuration under BSD,Unix and Linux
• Machine with installed MicroBSD 0.5 or greater
• sources srcsys.X.X.tgz ( where X.X is the version of MicroBSD).You can download the sources from MicroBSD

The first thing that you have to do is unpack the pack with kernel sources:

     # gunzip -d srcsys.X.X.tgz
     # tar xf srcsys.X.X.tar
     # mv sys/ /usr/src/
     

Go to /usr/src/sys/arch/$ARCH/conf/GENERIC , /usr/src/sys/conf/GENERIC and view them with:

     # cat GENERIC|more
     

• Where $ARCH is your i386 machine or Alpha and so on.
• NEWKERNEL - name of your custom kernel configuration

After you see which options you have to change type:

     # cp /usr/src/sys/arch/$ARCH/conf/GENERIC NEWKERNEL
     # cp /usr/src/sys/conf/GENERIC NEWKERNEL
     

First edit the NEWKERNEL file which is in /usr/src/sys/conf/NEWKERNEL.This file stores non arch-dependent options. So when creating your kernel config be sure to look through the /usr/src/sys/conf/NEWKERNEL and see what you want.

After that edit the /usr/src/sys/arch/$ARCH/conf/NEWKERNEL

     # vi /usr/src/sys/arch/$ARCH/conf/NEWKERNEL
     

Make shure that you change the line include "../../../conf/GENERIC" to include "../../../conf/NEWKERNEL".

When you finish customize your NEWKERNEL type:

     # /usr/sbin/config /usr/src/sys/arch/$ARCH/conf/NEWKERNEL
     # cd /usr/src/sys/arch/$ARCH/compile/NEWKERNEL/
     

Before you start with compileing go to / and copy the original MicroBSD kernel to make sure that you can boot next time.

     # cp /boot /boot.old
     # cp /bsd /bsd.old
     

Start compiling the kernel:

     # make depend
     # make
     # make install
     

This will install automatic your NEWKERNEL and you can reboot from here.

This, and other documents, can be downloaded from MicroBSD.

For questions about MicroBSD, read the documentation before contacting <MicroBSD Support>.
Copyright © 1995-2003 by The FreeBSD Documentation Project, OpenBSD FAQ Copyright © 1998-2003 OpenBSD, Modified for MicroBSD