It’s not really a big deal, but I am currently writing this using a linux kernel I compiled from source, which certainly feels like an accomplishment. The Arch Wiki has made the process fairly easy to follow. I just took the stock Arch Linux configuration without changes for now.
The most important part of this is of course that I have the option to do that, to take the source code of this incredible project and build my own kernel binary.
That we can make software unique to our needs is one of these best parts of software freedom. Good for you!
Congratulations on being awesome. Keep that shit up.
How long did it take to compile?
I didn’t really keep track, but I would estimate around 10-15 minutes on a Ryzen 5800X.
I compiled my first Linux kernel back in the mid 90s, mostly on 386 and Dec Alpha hardware, interesting enough both were not that much slower than what you mentioned, I think the alpha (a measly 21066) took about 40 minutes. If you had asked me back then, I’d probably have imagined a minute or two, 30 years later. Guess it says something about how much larger the Linux kernel has become.
That just brings me back to starting the compile, getting something to eat, doing chores, and whatever else. Then when it was finally done, booting it up only for it to not boot because I forgot some checkbox. Repeat a couple of times. Nights getting the thing working. And then on the next kernel release, trying to make sure I remembered all the checks because it didn’t let you export the current config back then.
not OP but on my i7 7700K a fully-featured kernel takes about 2 hours or so to compile. if i minimize the kernel to only the modules i need i can get it down to 20-30 minutes (clean). incremental compiles barely hit 5-10 mins
overall not a big deal, especially compared to something like firefox (or god forbid chromium). or gcc with pgo (which is technically cheating because it compiles itself 3 times if you enable pgo)
Please contribute to Pine64. As a consumer I really want Linux phones to go mainstream.
I often did this for years, using -march=corei7 and -mtune=skylake or whatever was the best option for my cpu, patching with brainfuck scheduler, etc.
Now I don’t care really 😑
It’s always cool to tinker with kernel and config, congrats 🎉
As a student I wasted so much time mucking around with flags and settings in Gentoo. It definitely wasn’t pointless since I learned so much, but I didn’t need to sit there and watch it compile as much as I did.
It was pleasing to watch though, just like defrag in Windows.
ahh what a shame. I have: https://kernel.melroy.org/.
But I also didn’t had the time to create new kernels. My PC is too slow at the moment. hahaha. Just wait… maybe I will get the latest threadripper. Instead of the first -gen i7 from 2008.
