Building a custom kernel

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1

Does one have to fire up the Nouveau driver somehow in a custom kernel?

I have been able to compile a custom kernel, but when I boot it, I get no graphical interface. If I boot to runlevel 3, I get no command line prompt. But I can ssh into the box and execute eg dmesg.

I have followed https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Building_a_custom_kernel and done this:

sudo dnf install fedpkg fedora-packager rpmdevtools ncurses-devel pesign grubby
sudo dnf install qt5-qtbase-devel libXi-devel gcc-c++
sudo echo MY_LOGIN_NAME >> /etc/pesign/users
sudo /usr/libexec/pesign/pesign-authorize
fedpkg clone -a kernel
cd kernel
git fetch
git switch f34
sed -i 's/# define buildid .local/%define buildid .local/g' kernel.spec
sudo dnf builddep kernel.spec
fedpkg local
sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck ./x86_64/kernel-debug-core-5.17.12-100.local.fc34.x86_64.rpm

As one can see, the kernel I have compiled is not very “custom” since I have not made any changes to the code I have checked out using git.

When I ssh into the box and do dmesg>outfile and then inspect outfile, I can see this near the end of the log:

[    8.334884] ACPI: bus type drm_connector registered
[    8.335980] systemd[1]: Activated swap dev-mapper-fedora\x2dswap.swap - /dev/mapper/fedora-swap.
[    8.338589] [drm:drm_core_init [drm]] Initialized

I had expected to see lines mentioning the Nouveau driver right after, but instead the log just stops and the screen freezes.

So my question is: should the Nouveau driver have been “enabled” somehow? Or am I missing something else?

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2

I’ve never had to do this with a custom kernel. It is possible to have a kernel compiled without support for it and it’s also possible that the current installed drivers haven’t been fully tested for that kernel version.

3

You are right. No need to enable drivers. What I missed was that to install a kernel, one must install three packages like this:

sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck ./x86_64/kernel-core-5.17.12-100.local.fc34.x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck ./x86_64/kernel-modules-5.17.12-100.local.fc34.x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck ./x86_64/kernel-5.17.12-100.local.fc34.x86_64.rpm

In other words: no need to enable the drivers. But it seems one has to install them :slight_smile:

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