"make config" and ./configure

[Hanry Zhou]

I have a question with regards 2 steps in building the new kernel.

One is "make config", another is "./configure", what does these two steps do, and what are differences between these two, and if I have to run both of them.

Thanks!

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello,

AFAIK there is no ./configure for the kernel sources.

The (ultra) short set of commands:

make mrproper
make config (or variants)
make dep
make bzImage (or variants)
make modules
make modules_install

I highly recommend to read (at least) the README file that comes in the top level directory of the kernel sources.

Greetings, Martin

[Kodjo Agbenu]

Hello,

"./configure" is not used to build a Linux kernel. It is generally used to build many software programs. It is generated by Autoconf/Automake.

Here are the available methods :

=> Edit .config file in /usr/src/linux : of course, you need to know what you are doing (very difficult).

=> Type "make config" in /usr/src/linux : this is a question&answer method that can be very long because one needs to answer ALL questions, even those about kernel parameters that do not need to be changed. At the end, it creates a ".config" file.

=> Type "make menuconfig" in text mode. It provides a ncurses" menu that makes the configuration easier. Of course, it also creates the ".config" file.

=> Type "make xconfig" : the same in X11 (graphical) mode.


The ".config" file contains kernel compilation parameters such as load or not a specific driver, as module or kernel built-in, etc...

Good luck.

Kodjo

[Mark Grant]

As mentioned, ./configure is not used for building kernel sources.

configure is a shell script created by automake that creates "make" files based on information it collects from the system.

"make" is a very handy tool that developers use to build applications. It keeps tracks of all the files in an application that depend on each other and when they were last modified. Thus, if you make a change to one of the source files in your application and re-run make, it will build only those bits that need to be re-built. However, cerating a make file is an art unto itself and so the "configure" script is a very handy tool. Typically a make file will have different rules to allow you to do different things. Usually you'll have a "make" on it's own, to build the thing, "make install" will install it but you might have other things like "make clean" to remove all the binaries and stuff, leaving you with a clean source.

The kernel make file includes a "make config" which pretty much only starts up the configure routines allowing you to add compile time options before the "make bzImage" that actually build your new kernel.