VirtualBox: How to compile Linux Kernel on a Debian Guest

Debian Packages

• See https://osp4diss.vlsm.org/osp-103.html for more details.

Download Latest STABLE Kernel

• Fetch the latest STABLE kernel from https://kernel.org/.

# START =============================================================
STABLE=$(wget -O - -o /dev/null https://www.kernel.org/finger_banner | awk '/stable/ {print $NF; exit}')
MAJOR=$(echo $STABLE | cut -d. -f1)
URL="https://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v$MAJOR.x"
KERNEL="linux-$STABLE.tar.xz"
TARBALL="linux-$STABLE.tar"
PGP="linux-$STABLE.tar.sign"
KURL="$URL/$KERNEL"
PURL="$URL/$PGP"

# ===================================================================
# Wget the latest kernel stable version
wget -c $KURL
# ===================================================================
# Wget the signature
wget -c $PURL
# ===================================================================
# Locate Keys
gpg --locate-keys torvalds@kernel.org gregkh@kernel.org

Sign Key (optional)

gpg --sign-key gregkh@kernel.org

Uncompress the file and verify

# ===================================================================
# Uncompress
unxz $KERNEL
# Verify
gpg --verify $PGP $TARBALL

Extract TAR file

# ===================================================================
tar xvf $TARBALL
# ===================================================================
cd linux-$STABLE

Overkilled Cleaning Habit

Once in a while, some Bozo will ask about why not make distclean, or make mrproper, or make clean. Ok, this is the way!

make distclean; make mrproper; make clean;

AMD64 Option 1: Reusing ".config" files

caution

If you copied a wrong .config file, you might create a massive kernel with huge modules.

• Consider copying a working .config file from the /boot directory.

• Or, try to download this ".config" file

• See also Linux/AMD64 Kernel Config for VirtualBox.

• Or, try to reuse any .config file. * Run:

  yes "" | make oldconfig

AMD64 OPTION 2: A .config file from scratch

• If OPTION 1 failed, consider making a .config file from scratch with:

make x86_64_defconfig
yes "" | make oldconfig

Menuconfig

make menuconfig

E.g., for cbkadal

General setup  --->
  (-cbkadal-10) Local version - append to kernel release
  Kernel compression mode (XZ)  --->
  (cbkadal) Default hostname
  <*> Kernel .config support
  [*] Enable access to .config through /proc/config.gz
  <*> Enable kernel headers through /sys/kernel/kheaders.tar.xz
Processor type and features  --->
  [ ] EFI runtime service support
Device Drivers --->
  Firmware Drivers --->
    [*] Disable EFI runtime services support by default
File systems  --->
  <*> FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) support
  <*>   Character device in Userspace support
  <*>   Virtio Filesystem
Security options  --->
  [ ] NSA SELinux Support
  [*] AppArmor support
  [*]   Enable introspection of sha1 hashes for loaded profiles
  [*]     Enable policy hash introspection by default
  First legacy 'major LSM' to be initialized
    (X) AppArmor
Kernel hacking  --->
  Compile-time checks and compiler options  --->
    [*] Install uapi headers to usr/include

Compile (make)

time make

• FYI Compile Time:
  • Linux Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90GHz

    real      3m5.825s
    user      14m51.339s
    sys       1m59.721sa
  • Windows 10 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90GHz

    real    4m17.702s
    user    21m29.718s
    sys     2m21.400s
  • Linux Lenovo E135 (AMD E2-2000 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics)

    real  123m25,746s
    user  211m58,046s
    sys  28m1,298s
  • Linux Lenovo Yoga 300 (Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N2840 @2.16GHz)

    real  69m6,574s
    user  115m1,006s
    sys  19m12,436s
  • Windows 10 Lenovo Yoga 300 (Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N2840 @2.16GHz

    real    4580m11.804s (<span class="important-text">Yes, there is something wrong here!</span>)
    user    6900m36.555s
    sys     864m34.820s
    
    • One more time (after fixing the Windows 10 drivers):

      real    72m26.981s
      user    114m32.041s
      sys     24m54.993s

Install

• User: root
  • Use "sudo" if you wish.
  • Change Directory (cd) to the linux kernel source!

# USER: ROOT ============
make modules_install

make install

make headers_install INSTALL_HDR_PATH=/usr

Known Boot Errors

ata1.00: Read log 0x00 page 0x00 failed, Emask 0x1

Linux Firmware

• URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git
• • E.g. TARBALL linux-firmware-20220509.tar.gz
    • open the TARBALL
    • Go to folder linux-firmware-20220509/
    • Copy the missing modules into /lib/firmware/. E.g. (ROOT),

cp -r i915/ /lib/firmware/
cp -r tigon/ /lib/firmware/
cp -r e100/ /lib/firmware/
cp -r rtl_nic/ /lib/firmware/

Old Modules

• You have to delete old modules /lib/modules and old config /boot/ files manually. Do not forget to update-grub.
• Visit ROOT:

cd /lib/modules/
ls -al
cd /boot/
ls -al

Path: docs/virtualbox/compile-linux-kernel