Red Hat 5.1 Kernel Compile

[Doval]

Hello all.<br>
I recently installed RH5.1 (kernel 2.0.34) on my P166. I have a removable E-IDE harddrive system, and I have a separate harddrive for each OS that I run (currently, I run NT 4.0, Slackware 3.4 and Red Hat 5.1). I have had Slackware (3.4, kernel 2.0.33) running on this same machine for a couple of years.<br>
When I tried to compile my first kernel under RH, it got all the way through, but then bombed at the end. <br>
I have given the command "make zImage", but the error message said that the kernel was too big.<br>
I don't understand this, as I normally make a monolithic kernel, and only have the bare essentials turned on, like PPP, sound, ISDN and not much else.<br>
A normal Slackware kernel will come out to about 420k (I have 96mg RAM and a 127mb swap partition on that harddrive, and a similar setup on the RH harddrive), and runs without a hitch.<br>
I'm pretty sure there is a simple solution to this, but a search of the HOW-TO's, FAQ's and Dejanews didn't turn up anything helpful.<br>
I would prefer not to use modules, but I will if that is the only way to get this kernel to compile.<br>
<br>
TIA <br>
Dave Hulsopple

 

[RJH]

Depending on what you compile in, the newer kernels can be too large for a 'make zImage'. If that's your only problem do a 'make bzImage'. That will give you a compressed kernel. Copy it to the appropriate location and rerun lilo. That's it.<br>
<br>
-Bob Haines

 

[Jasper]

Hi,<br>
I was going to suggest bzImage as well but I wasn't sure whether it would need treating differently to a normal zImage. Can anyone answer this for me.<br>
<br>
Thanks

 

[Ganesh]

bzImage doesn't need to be treated differently to a zImage - just copy it to whatever location and rerun lilo and RJH says. BTW I don't think a bzImage is compressed, it just contains different bootstrap code.

 

[RangeRick]

bzImage *is* compressed, with bzip2 instead of gzip for zImage (better compression ratio). However, this only works with 2.1.x+ kernels, I believe.<br>
<br>
I'm not sure how true this is, but I had heard (at least for 2.x kernels) that the kernel has a limit of 500k compressed. Can anyone confirm this?<br>
<br>
Basically, if you have to, move some stuff out to modules, there really must be a ton of stuff in your kernel for it to be breaking 500k

 

[festus]

This is true. And the default compilation from source doesn't work.<br>
:^&lt;