Arch kernel compile = easy as apple pie

marscay · 6 Jun 2008 at 05:31

not much of a thread really but tonight i decided to compile my first kernel (2.6.25.4) under Arch after moving to 8GB DDR2 goodness so i can torture this box with plenty of VM's - manual compile not through ABS.

easiest compile you will ever come across, i've been through pretty much all the distros and compiled kernels on all of them and Arch continues to amaze me with the approach to pretty much every aspect .....simple & extremely functional.

the distro is so kickass i'm surprised more don't flock to it.

Mobius 1 · 6 Jun 2008 at 08:30

i can never seem to get an install of Arch working. :/ i think the installer is a little too complex for me. which is kinda sad the amount of distro's i have actually used.

craptakular · 6 Jun 2008 at 09:48

-Tauren- said:
i can never seem to get an install of Arch working. :/ i think the installer is a little too complex for me. which is kinda sad the amount of distro's i have actually used.

I have only really used suse and ubuntu. I tried arch a couple of months ago and got it installed. I just followed a guide, the thing that beat me was nano or vi text editor. I couldnt bloody save a file to set user permissions! So I skipped that part and installed gnome.

So technically I had it wokring

It was so dam fast compared to ubuntu it was unreal. I was impressed with the way the distro works, you never have to format and install a new version like ubuntu as it auto updates through terminal commands, genious!

In fact you guys have inspired me to master vi/nano today and install arch tonight!!!!

Bes · 6 Jun 2008 at 10:11

Yep Arch rocks

Vi isn't hard at all once you know what you are doing, and is extremely powerful.... well well worth learning.

:wq! was what you were looking for by the way!

.walls · 6 Jun 2008 at 10:16

Um... if you're not using ABS, then I don't see how it can be any easier - considering it is exactly the same process irrelevant of distro.

i.e.
make menuconfig (or make config or make xconfig, etc)
<edit config by hand>
make -j3 (there are options for make, but this is my preference)
make modules modules_install

then copy bzImage and System.map to /boot and ammend /boot/grub/menu.lst accordingly.

Same tools as every other distro, same process.

.walls · 6 Jun 2008 at 10:17

Bes said:
:wq! was what you were looking for by the way!

:wq not :wq!

memyselfandi · 6 Jun 2008 at 10:32

.walls said:
:wq not :wq!

Nothing wrong with :wq! ... just forces it do the write instead of failing if the file is read only.

tntcoder · 6 Jun 2008 at 11:09

marscay said:
not much of a thread really but tonight i decided to compile my first kernel (2.6.25.4) under Arch after moving to 8GB DDR2 goodness so i can torture this box with plenty of VM's - manual compile not through ABS.

easiest compile you will ever come across, i've been through pretty much all the distros and compiled kernels on all of them and Arch continues to amaze me with the approach to pretty much every aspect .....simple & extremely functional.

the distro is so kickass i'm surprised more don't flock to it.

What have you turned on in the new kernel that isnt on in the stock kernel? for the 8gb ram i assume your running 64bit rather than the highmem option? So is it the kernel KVM stuff your playing with for your virtual machines? Would be interested to know how kvm performs in comparison to virtualbox/vmware etc

Dj_Jestar · 6 Jun 2008 at 11:32

.walls said:
Um... if you're not using ABS, then I don't see how it can be any easier - considering it is exactly the same process irrelevant of distro.

i.e.
make menuconfig (or make config or make xconfig, etc)
<edit config by hand>
make -j3 (there are options for make, but this is my preference)
make modules modules_install

then copy bzImage and System.map to /boot and ammend /boot/grub/menu.lst accordingly.

Same tools as every other distro, same process.

Was about to mention this myself

pingwing · 6 Jun 2008 at 12:06

But arch has an average mackage management system! (pacman last time i played with it) and yeah was pretty fast (about the same as my gentoo) but was so much harder to get everything you needed on the system (i went for putting gnome on it and got about half the required packages

)

But (back the the op) kernels are so nice and fast to make when you do it your self

marscay · 6 Jun 2008 at 23:27

.walls said:
Um... if you're not using ABS, then I don't see how it can be any easier - considering it is exactly the same process irrelevant of distro.

i.e.
make menuconfig (or make config or make xconfig, etc)
<edit config by hand>
make -j3 (there are options for make, but this is my preference)
make modules modules_install

then copy bzImage and System.map to /boot and ammend /boot/grub/menu.lst accordingly.

Same tools as every other distro, same process.

i was waiting for it

and of course you're completely right, just wanted to start a pro Arch thread and i had nothing else to talk about....as i said it's a BS thread

look at the time when i started the thread, just finished watching the celtics do the lakers ....i was pretty frazzled and rebuilt my nix box in insane time for something to do.....i just love Arch i guess.

i have a global -j10 for my make preferences with the quad - works nicely.

marscay · 6 Jun 2008 at 23:38

tntcoder said:
What have you turned on in the new kernel that isnt on in the stock kernel? for the 8gb ram i assume your running 64bit rather than the highmem option? So is it the kernel KVM stuff your playing with for your virtual machines? Would be interested to know how kvm performs in comparison to virtualbox/vmware etc

actually using PAE in 32bit right now, my box is so fast anyway i've never noticed any boost with the 64bit libs and i get no niggling incompatibilities.

but yeh i am messing around with different things on the kernel, KVM being amongst them.

whitecrook · 9 Jun 2008 at 18:44

Oxy said:
It was so dam fast compared to ubuntu it was unreal. I was impressed with the way the distro works, you never have to format and install a new version like ubuntu as it auto updates through terminal commands, genious!

In fact you guys have inspired me to master vi/nano today and install arch tonight!!!!

Um correct me if I'm wrong here, but ubuntu will upgrade via terminal commands also ... apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. And for a big update, use apt-get dist-upgrade .
I have done that many times on al sorts of debian based systems, no issue...

And update manager will offer to do this for you if it detects a new version.

Dj_Jestar · 9 Jun 2008 at 18:59

whitecrook said:
Um correct me if I'm wrong here, but ubuntu will upgrade via terminal commands also ... apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. And for a big update, use apt-get dist-upgrade .
I have done that many times on al sorts of debian based systems, no issue...

And update manager will offer to do this for you if it detects a new version.

Oxy is mistaking a kernel (re)compile for a complete distro upgrade

whitecrook · 9 Jun 2008 at 19:21

Dj_Jestar said:
Oxy is mistaking a kernel (re)compile for a complete distro upgrade

I'm still confused... To be clear, you don't have to 'format and install to get a new version' whether you are talking about the kernel or the distro, although sometimes, it can be easier, depending on the situation.