Linux Kernel in a Nutshell

Organization of the material

There are three major parts to this book. The first part is composed of Chapters 1 through 6, which cover everything you need to know about retrieving, building, installing, and upgrading the Linux kernel, in more or less step-by-step fashion.

The second part consists of Chapters 7 and 8, which describe how to properly configure the kernel based on the hardware present in the system, and provides a number of different "recipes" for common configurations.

The final part consists of Chapters 9 through 11. These chapters provide a reference to the different kernel command line options, the kernel build options, and a select few of the different kernel configuration options.

Chapter 1, Introduction, explains when and why you would want to build the kernel.

Chapter 2, Requirements For Building and Using the Kernel, covers the different programs and tools that are needed in order to properly build the kernel. It also covers a number of different programs that are tied very closely to the kernel, how to determine the needed version of the programs, and where to find them.

Chapter 3, Retrieving the kernel source discusses how the different Linux kernel versions relate to each other, where to retrieve the Linux kernel source code from, and how to download it properly.

Chapter 4, Configuring and Building explains how to configure and properly build the Linux kernel.

Chapter 5, Installing and Booting from a Kernel shows how to install the kernel that has been built properly, ...