[KERNEL NEWBIES ACESS] Kloudifold

[KERNEL NEWBIES ACESS] Kloudifold

[Kloudifold]

Dear Outreachy team,

I am an Outreachy applicant who recently followed the tutorial for the Kernel Firstpatch on your website. During the process, I encountered a couple of issues that I believe could benefit from an update to the tutorial.

Firstly, the tutorial assumes that the .config file used to compile the distribution kernel is stored in the /boot/ directory. However, some distributions, including the one I use, do not follow this convention. Instead, the .config file is stored in the /proc/ directory as a compressed file. To address this issue, I propose updating the tutorial with the command "zcat /proc/config.gz > .config" to extract the .config file from /proc/ and use it for compiling the kernel.

Secondly, the tutorial instructs users to install the kernel using LILO as the boot manager. However, many modern distributions, including the one I use, use GRUB as the default boot manager. This results in an error when executing "sudo make modules_install install" as the system cannot find LILO. To resolve this issue, I suggest adding instructions for manually installing the kernel and initramfs and configure GRUB.

In summary, my proposed updates to the Kernel Firstpatch tutorial include:

    Adding a command to extract the .config file from /proc/ using "zcat /proc/config.gz > .config"
    Updating the instructions for installing the kernel and initramfs manually and configuring GRUB

I believe that these updates will improve the usability of the tutorial for users who encounter similar issues. Thank you for your consideration, and please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Best regards,
Kloudifold.

Re: [KERNEL NEWBIES ACESS] Kloudifold

[Alison Schofield]

On Thu, Mar 09, 2023 at 04:18:03AM +0800, Kloudifold wrote:
> Dear Outreachy team,
> 
> I am an Outreachy applicant who recently followed the tutorial for the Kernel Firstpatch on your website. During the process, I encountered a couple of issues that I believe could benefit from an update to the tutorial.

Hi Kloudifold,

These sound like very helpful additions! 

I was about to add you to the Editors list for the wiki, but want
to check on the name. Have you looked at this yet:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/submitting-patches.html?highlight=signed%20off#sign-your-work-the-developer-s-certificate-of-origin

My question is if you go by 'Kloudifold' as your full legal name.
ie. will your SOB be:
Signed-off-by: Kloudifold <cloudifold.3125@gmail.com>

Whatever you put as your name there, will be how your work is
discovered in the kernel from here forward. So, let's be sure
to get the name correct.

And, I want to use that same name in the Editors file of the wiki.

Let me know & thanks!
Alison


> 
> Firstly, the tutorial assumes that the .config file used to compile the distribution kernel is stored in the /boot/ directory. However, some distributions, including the one I use, do not follow this convention. Instead, the .config file is stored in the /proc/ directory as a compressed file. To address this issue, I propose updating the tutorial with the command "zcat /proc/config.gz > .config" to extract the .config file from /proc/ and use it for compiling the kernel.
> 
> Secondly, the tutorial instructs users to install the kernel using LILO as the boot manager. However, many modern distributions, including the one I use, use GRUB as the default boot manager. This results in an error when executing "sudo make modules_install install" as the system cannot find LILO. To resolve this issue, I suggest adding instructions for manually installing the kernel and initramfs and configure GRUB.
> 
> In summary, my proposed updates to the Kernel Firstpatch tutorial include:
> 
>     Adding a command to extract the .config file from /proc/ using "zcat /proc/config.gz > .config"
>     Updating the instructions for installing the kernel and initramfs manually and configuring GRUB
> 
> I believe that these updates will improve the usability of the tutorial for users who encounter similar issues. Thank you for your consideration, and please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
> 
> Best regards,
> Kloudifold.
> 
> 

Re: [KERNEL NEWBIES ACESS] Kloudifold

[Fabio M. De Francesco]

On mercoledì 8 marzo 2023 21:18:03 CET Kloudifold wrote:

[...]

> Secondly, the tutorial instructs users to install the kernel using LILO as 
the
> boot manager. However, many modern distributions, including the one I use,
> use GRUB as the default boot manager. This results in an error when 
executing
> "sudo make modules_install install" as the system cannot find LILO. To
> resolve this issue, I suggest adding instructions for manually installing 
the
> kernel and initramfs and configure GRUB.
> 

I'm not sure if the solution to your problem is to install everything 
manually. I have no problems getting `make modules_install install` to work 
properly and find GRUB2 because openSUSE provides the "dracut" package for the 
sysadmins/developers to automate the above. 

It's perfectly fine to teach how to install manually, even if just for people 
to learn what one needs to boot a custom kernel. But kernel developers don't 
have time to manually do routine tasks that can be easily automated. 

I use to compile and install the kernel image, the modules, init, System.map, 
config, and grub.conf at least two or three times a day and often more times 
(you'll understand when you find yourself doing a bisect with git-bisect and 
maybe you have to compile and install a dozen times in a row in one day). 

In my opinion you need to make sure you understand and explain how to install 
"dracut" if your distro provides it. Otherwise, search and read the 
documentation of your distribution and try to figure out how to make the `make 
modules_install install` command to work properly in your system...

suse:~ # zypper info dracut
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

Information for package dracut:
-------------------------------
Repository     : Main Repository (OSS)
Name           : dracut
Version        : 059+suse.366.gf45bc67a-1.1
Arch           : x86_64
Vendor         : openSUSE
Installed Size : 1.9 MiB
Installed      : Yes (automatically)
Status         : up-to-date
Source package : dracut-059+suse.366.gf45bc67a-1.1.src
Upstream URL   : https://github.com/dracutdevs/dracut/wiki
Summary        : Event driven initramfs infrastructure
Description    : 
    Dracut contains tools to create a bootable initramfs for Linux kernels >= 
2.6.
    Dracut contains various modules which are driven by the event-based udev
    and systemd. Having root on MD, DM, LVM2, LUKS is supported as well as
    NFS, iSCSI, NBD, FCoE.

[...]

Thanks,

Fabio

Re: [KERNEL NEWBIES ACESS] Kloudifold

[Ira Weiny]

Kloudifold wrote:
> Dear Outreachy team,
> 
> I am an Outreachy applicant who recently followed the tutorial for the Kernel Firstpatch on your website. During the process, I encountered a couple of issues that I believe could benefit from an update to the tutorial.
> 
> Firstly, the tutorial assumes that the .config file used to compile the distribution kernel is stored in the /boot/ directory. However, some distributions, including the one I use, do not follow this convention. Instead, the .config file is stored in the /proc/ directory as a compressed file. To address this issue, I propose updating the tutorial with the command "zcat /proc/config.gz > .config" to extract the .config file from /proc/ and use it for compiling the kernel.
> 
> Secondly, the tutorial instructs users to install the kernel using LILO as the boot manager. However, many modern distributions, including the one I use, use GRUB as the default boot manager. This results in an error when executing "sudo make modules_install install" as the system cannot find LILO. To resolve this issue, I suggest adding instructions for manually installing the kernel and initramfs and configure GRUB.
> 
> In summary, my proposed updates to the Kernel Firstpatch tutorial include:
> 
>     Adding a command to extract the .config file from /proc/ using "zcat /proc/config.gz > .config"

I have no issues with adding this as a possibility but it should be noted
that some distros do this and others have it in /boot.  :-/

For fedora (my current distro) the nice thing about /boot is it tells you
all the configs for all the installed kernels.

$ ls /boot/confi*
/boot/config-6.0.18-300.fc37.x86_64  /boot/config-6.1.13-200.fc37.x86_64
/boot/config-6.1.7-200.fc37.x86_64


Out of curiosity what distro are you using?

>     Updating the instructions for installing the kernel and initramfs manually and configuring GRUB

I did not notice this when I skimmed over the instructions.  Thanks!
Let's get that updated.

As Alison says we should use your full legal name to ensure you get credit
for your contributions!

Thanks!
Ira

> 
> I believe that these updates will improve the usability of the tutorial for users who encounter similar issues. Thank you for your consideration, and please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
> 
> Best regards,
> Kloudifold.
> 
>