Building your First Linux Kernel

Sometimes there's just no other choice. Your hardware might not be supported by your Linux Distribution, or you might need a feature that your distro didn't feel like including. You might also just want the nerd cred, or have an actual honest-to-goodness bug to fix.

Whatever the reason: you need to compile your own Linux kernel. This rite of passage doesn't need to be perilous or unguided. In this talk I'll walk you through how to successfully compile your first Linux kernel, the reasons you might want to, why you might not want to, and where to go for help. After that I'll show how to make packages out of your kernel so you can easily distribute it to your friends, and maybe go a bit further to actually submit a kernel patch.

This talk will give you through what a kernel is, and how to patch, build, and install whole kernels plus individual modules, as well as how to submit your patch upstream for inclusion.