[ale] Building Linux Kernal

[John M. Mills]

l- First time at trying to build Linux Kernal.

I hope you have (1) a generally working installation in place, and (2)
read the blow-by-blow in the README that unpacked with your source --
particularly the 'make config' step.

l- Failed with the following error:

l- Console.c: in function "con_write"
l- console.c:1734:Virtual memoyr exausted.

l- I have 8 meg of RAM and a Swap disk. /dev/hda1 30% free.
Sure sounds like you hit the wall compiling, though a defective source
file might result in a recursive compilation loop of some kind (but I've
not seen that, I think).

Run 'free' and see if your 'swap' is properly turned on and available,
and that you don't have a lot of it occupied.

I suggest that you turn off any unnecessary activity (I'm really thinking
of X-Window operation -- that uses a _lot_ of RAM.) so that RAM+swap is
available for your build.

I suggest you invoke the build with something like:
% make zImage 2>&1 > ~/linux.build.log &

This will dump the action into background, and you cah watch the log with:
% tail -f ~/linux.build.log

Naturally I assume you're building from /usr/src/linux, and that root's ~
is elsewhere.  Now you'll have some evidence to look at and see if the
problem is RAM availability, or some trash in makefile or a source  element.
At least you'll have _some_ evidence ...

l- Using Linux 1.1.59
That's a good one to get away from, as it's a bit unstable.  I was pretty
happy with 1.1.87 because it has good net suppoort and 'mostly working'
loadable-module support.  I'm just starting with 1.2.13, which is probably
a better choice for you to go to, right now.  1.1.59 ought to be good
enougth to build your new kernel, assuming you have a sutable gcc and
libc installed.  Consult the kernel README for those requirements at the
level you decide to build.  Once you've done this it becomes routine.  Just
slow (on my 386dx/40, 2-3 hours, and I'm probably _really_ optimistic
there).  It should be a no-brainer, though.  That's another good reason to
throw it into background and create the log.  When I built in foreground and
used 'tee' to create a log, I wasn't always smart enought to get the error
messages onto the log.  Those are the part you care about, naturally.

l- Please help.
Keep posting your questions, but we need a few more symptoms to be more help.

l- I'm a FORTRAN programmer.
Well, I just got to be one again, myself.  Condolances.

Regards --jmm--

John M. Mills, Senior Research Engineer   --   john.m.mills at gtri.gatech.edu
   Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0853
        Phone contacts: 770.528.3258 (voice), 770.528.7083 (FAX)
          "Lies, damned lies, statistics, and simulations."