Summary

This chapter, along with the previous one, covered in a lot of detail the necessary preliminaries and how exactly to configure and build the Linux kernel from source.

In this chapter, we began with the actual kernel (and kernel modules’) build process. Once built, we showed how the kernel modules are to be installed onto the system. We then moved on to the practicalities of generating the initramfs (or initrd) image and went on to explain the motivation behind it.

The final step in the kernel build was the (simple) customization of the bootloader (here, we focused only on x86 GRUB). We then showed how to boot the system via the newly baked kernel and verify that its configuration is as we expected. As a useful add-on, we then showed how we can even cross-compile the Linux kernel for another processor (AArch64, in this instance). Finally, we shared some additional tips to help you with the kernel build.

Again, if you haven’t done so already, we urge...