UTM MacOS Silicon: How to compile Linux Kernel on a Debian Guest

Debian Packages

See https://osp4diss.vlsm.org/osp-103.html for more details.

Download Latest STABLE Kernel

Fetch the latest STABLE kernel from https://kernel.org/.

# START =============================================================
STABLE=$(wget -O - -o /dev/null https://www.kernel.org/finger_banner | awk '/stable/ {print $NF; exit}')
MAJOR=$(echo $STABLE | cut -d. -f1)
URL="https://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v$MAJOR.x"
KERNEL="linux-$STABLE.tar.xz"
TARBALL="linux-$STABLE.tar"
PGP="linux-$STABLE.tar.sign"
KURL="$URL/$KERNEL"
PURL="$URL/$PGP"

# ===================================================================
# Wget the latest kernel stable version
wget -c $KURL
# ===================================================================
# Wget the signature
wget -c $PURL
# ===================================================================
# Locate Keys
gpg --locate-keys torvalds@kernel.org gregkh@kernel.org

Sign Key (optional)

gpg --sign-key gregkh@kernel.org

Uncompress the file and verify

# ===================================================================
# Uncompress
unxz $KERNEL
# Verify
gpg --verify $PGP $TARBALL

Extract TAR file

# ===================================================================
tar xvf $TARBALL
# ===================================================================
cd linux-$STABLE

Overkilled Cleaning Habit

Once in a while, some Bozo will ask about why not “make distclean,” or “make mrproper,” or “make clean.” Ok, this is the way! ℼ

make distclean; make mrproper; make clean;

ARM64 Option 1: Reusing “.config” files

If copying a wrong “.config” file, you might create a massive kernel with huge modules.
- Consider copying a working “.config” file from the “/boot/” directory.
- Or, try to download this “.config” file
  - See also Linux/ARM64 Kernel Config for UTM.
- Or, try to reuse any .config file
Run:

yes "" | make oldconfig

ARM64 OPTION 2: A “.config” file from scratch

If OPTION 1 failed, consider making a “.config” file from scratch with:

cp arch/arm64/configs/defconfig .
yes "" | make oldconfig

Menuconfig

make menuconfig

E.g., for cbkadal

General setup  --->
  (-cbkadal-10) Local version - append to kernel release
  Kernel compression mode (XZ)  --->
  (cbkadal) Default hostname
  <*> Kernel .config support
  [*] Enable access to .config through /proc/config.gz
  <*> Enable kernel headers through /sys/kernel/kheaders.tar.xz
Processor type and features  --->
  [ ] EFI runtime service support 
Device Drivers --->
  Firmware Drivers --->
    [*] Disable EFI runtime services support by default 
File systems  --->
  <*> FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) support
  <*>   Character device in Userspace support
  <*>   Virtio Filesystem 
Kernel hacking  --->  
  Compile-time checks and compiler options  --->
    [*] Install uapi headers to usr/include

Compile (make)

time make

FYI Compile Time:
- (Linux) Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90GHz
  - real 3m5.825s
  - user 14m51.339s
  - sys 1m59.721s

Install

User: root
- Use “sudo” if you wish.
- Change Directory (cd) to the linux kernel source!

# USER: ROOT ============
make modules_install

make install

make headers_install INSTALL_HDR_PATH=/usr

ℼ

Known Boot Errors

ata1.00: Read log 0x00 page 0x00 failed, Emask 0x1

Linux Firmware

URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/
- E.g. TARBALL “linux-firmware-20220509.tar.gz”
  - open the TARBALL
  - Go to folder “linux-firmware-20220509/”
  - Copy the missing modules into “/lib/firmware/”. E.g. (ROOT),

cp -r i915/ /lib/firmware/
cp -r tigon/ /lib/firmware/
cp -r e100/ /lib/firmware/
cp -r rtl_nic/ /lib/firmware/

Old Modules

You have to delete old modules (/lib/modules) and old config (/boot/) files manually. Do not forget to “update-grub”.
Visit (ROOT):

cd /lib/modules/
ls -al
cd /boot/
ls -al

Table of Content

ℼ