Installing Custom Kernel

viyoriya

you need to make initramfs (mkinitramfs)

To gain knowledge/experience to build Linux try
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
lfs and blfs section

(You can find the same scripts in github)

You mentioned in other post your wifi module is working in older kernel 😀 . Just curious to know why you don't want to use the older version of the kernel ?

moore-bryan

Thanks for your comment here, too, @viyoriya.

I was on the IRC channel yesterday and @DataDrake helped explain that getting clr-boot-manager to even see a custom-compiled and -installed kernel is quite a process; for example mkinitramfs isn't even in the Solus repos. Even if I could make an initrd file, getting CBM to see it is complicated.

It would appear the answer to this question isn't "it's impossible," but that it's "incredibly difficult and not user-friendly;" there are no guides for it.

The 5.4-series kernel won't receive any other updates, like patched or security ones, because it's not LTS; so, running it is a temporary, if "dangerous," bandage. And, I'm not interested in running the 4.9 LTS kernel because it lags horribly on my machine...

jrsilvey

moore-bryan and now that I have read your last post on this topic I see that it does absolutely nothing to help you.

Sorry. Anyone else can feel free to link to this topic if it helps them though.

It's the thought that counts right? Hah. 🙂

jrsilvey

moore-bryan

Hey Bryan, I've been tracking your issue for the last few months because I had it too. I have a Realtek wifi drive. Sometime in December of January the Wifi in my Solus Budgie stopped working. I was going to reinstall but I tried Manjaro Budgie for about two weeks just because I was wiping the HD. During the second week, the Wifi stopped working. I installed Solus KDE sometime around February and I gotsoemtimes download updates, sometimes not. It hung alot. Eventually I couldn't use it at all for anything web related, ethernet or wifi.

Last night I was determined to fix it so I hunted down your posts. to figure it out.

I did:
sudo clr-boot-manager list-kernels

I had current-5.5.7-150. It was a fresh install so nothing to revert too. It's on another device and I didn't screenshot.

After that I did
sudo eopkg install linux-lts linux-lts-headers

After that I shutdown (not restart) following some advice I had seen just in case. After the bootloader popped up I saw the LTS (I believe 4.9.something) and then to ensure I automatically started with this kernel I typed:
sudo clr-boot-manager update

Once I did that I was able to use the LTS Kernel and my Wifi worked without any problems. The speed wasn't great.. I have a 2.4Gh Wifi card and I only got between 30-55Mbs downloads on the bare wireless connection. My ISP usually can get me upwards of several hundred Mbs so this was disappointing.

But the computer was usable and it only took me 15 minutes once I researched for about an hour to make sure I did everything correctly. Apparently many people have this same wifi issue with a variety of cards.

NOTE: I found two commands while researching that I think you might find useful.

lsmod gives you a rundown of the drivers you have installed
AND
last gives you a list of the last kernel changes you've booted up in and how long your device was up and running for.

reboot   system boot  5.4.12-144.curre Wed Jan 29 12:04 - 11:00  (22:56)
reboot   system boot  5.4.12-143.curre Sun Jan 19 08:02 - 18:07 (9+10:04)
reboot   system boot  5.3.18-140.curre Mon Jan 13 15:20 - 18:07 (15+02:46)
reboot   system boot  5.3.15-138.curre Fri Dec 27 11:44 - 15:01 (17+03:17)
reboot   system boot  5.4.1-137.curren Mon Dec  9 04:43 - 23:38 (17+18:55)
reboot   system boot  5.4.1-137.curren Sun Dec  8 02:35 - 04:40 (1+02:04)
reboot   system boot  5.3.13-135.curre Fri Dec  6 20:33 - 02:31 (1+05:57)

My entire output was longer and this isn't from the device I changed kernels on. But this should give you an idea of what the last comman does and a timeframe for when the kernel changes were implemented. The devs here seem to have rolled back a kernel update at some point because I have never messed around with the kernel before now.

Hope this helps!

Justin

Build and install 5.6.3 using the linux-current package.yml, then when you install it usysconf will update the rest of the system.

moore-bryan

Justin I'm not sure I understand... I compiled 5.6.3 with the config from Solus; what's the "package.yml?" After compiling and installing the 5.6.3 kernel, nothing saw, well, anything...

kaktuspalme

I can see your problem, but maybe finally linux-lts in solus will be 5.4, so I would wait a little. At least on kernel.org 5.4 it's a longterm supported kernel.

moore-bryan

kaktuspalme One can hope!

viyoriya

moore-bryan You need to build the package locally all the links are in this main page

https://getsol.us/articles/packaging/

you can find the package.yml in linux-current pacage in dev tracker

https://dev.getsol.us/source/linux-current/

(There is a video series about building packages for solus by Josh in youtube )

moore-bryan

Thanks, @viyoriya; I'll see if I can't get to some of this this week!

moore-bryan

Well, it's throwing some errors with which I'm not familiar:

make[1]: Entering directory '/home/bryan/Kernel/linux-5.6.3'
sudo solbuild build package.yml -p unstable-x86_64; 
Failed to load package: yaml: mapping values are not allowed in this context
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/bryan/Kernel/linux-5.6.3'
make abireport
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/bryan/Kernel/linux-5.6.3'
abireport -p abi_ -D `dirname package.yml` scan-packages `dirname package.yml`
error locating packages: No packages in directory .
make[1]: *** [../Makefile.common:15: abireport] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/bryan/Kernel/linux-5.6.3'
make: *** [../Makefile.common:12: complete] Error 2

viyoriya

moore-bryan Its updated to 5.6.4 in repo yesterday 😀. Friday you can update it else you clone and compile the package.

https://dev.getsol.us/source/linux-current/browse/master/package.yml

Justin

moore-bryan As @viyoriya mentioned it's available on unstable now. You were compiling for unstable it seems so you may as well just switch to unstable to test. I'd suggest joining #Solus-Dev IRC channel on Freenode to discuss the testing procedure.

moore-bryan

Got it... I've always wondered about "changing" to the unstable branch; is it as easy as sudo eopkg ar Solus https://mirrors.rit.edu/solus/packages/unstable/eopkg-index.xml.xz?

Also, will I be unable to compile the 5.6.6 kernel, then?

George

Hi @moore-bryan , I think you have taken a difficult path. The problem of Wi-Fi in Linux is one of the most acute. My Wi-Fi didn’t work either, but it didn’t work permanently. Thanks to the solus forum, I found out that

you need to know the name of the chip
find the driver for github
using a simple script to compile everything
profit, everything worked

moore-bryan

Thanks @George; already went down that route and discovered there's a kernel-related issue with not starting the firmware and/or starting it incorrectly.

So, compiling a kernel with the upstream patch or waiting for those merges are my only options.

moore-bryan

Switching to "unstable" via sudo eopkg ar Solus https://packages.getsol.us/unstable/eopkg-index.xml.xz, which upgrades to the 5.6.4-152 kernel fixes everything.

So, the "solution" to this post—i.e., installing a custom kernel—is "although it's not impossible, there's no wiki or 'how-to' about it, so don't."

Justin

moore-bryan It's easy enough once you've done it a few times, learning like anything is the hard part. 😀

moore-bryan

And it's my comfort with Debian/Ubuntu that was holding me back... "Muscle memory."

I believe I've found my "forever" distro in Solus, so it's time to break old habits.

The one thing I think Solus can still learn from a distro like Ubuntu is how responsive their forum is, but I believe as more users migrate to Solus that will improve.

Justin

moore-bryan The core team are more active in IRC than on the forums usually for Solus. Plus instant communication helps with diagnosing issues.

Staudey

moore-bryan The one thing I think Solus can still learn from a distro like Ubuntu is how responsive their forum is, but I believe as more users migrate to Solus that will improve.

Definitely directly related to the size of the user base. When there are thousands of other users active at any given time you're going to get faster responses. Unfortunately we can't offer that as a service 🙂