Notes on building a 2.6.36 kernel for Fedora 14
This is a supplement to the file on using my Dell Latitude E6410 with Fedora: here.

I had previously installed F14, and had tried a 2.6.35 kernel (with and without tuxonice) and could not get the graphic card to work properly -- symptoms described below, e.g. booting with blank screen unless I used nomodeset and the 'vesa' graphic driver in xorg.conf.

So I downloaded the 2.6.36 kernel source (linux-2.6.36.tar.bz2)
You may wish to use a newer one from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/

Untar the file (e.g. tar xjvf linux-2.6.36.tar.bz2)
Get rid of the architectures you don't want, by putting this in a bash script file and running it (I forget where I found it):

  #!/bin/bash

  ## get rid of all but x86 architecture (alter for your system):
  ARCHDIRS="alpha blackfin h8300 m68knommu mn10300 s390 arm \
  cris m32r microblaze parisc sh avr32 frv ia64 m68k mips \
  powerpc sparc xtensa score"

  echo -n "deleting"
  for DIR in $ARCHDIRS; do
      echo -n " $DIR"
      rm -rf arch/$DIR
  done

  echo " Documentation"
  rm -rf Documentation

  echo ""
  echo "creating Documentation Kbuild"
  mkdir -p Documentation/DocBook
  touch Documentation/Kbuild Documentation/DocBook/Kbuild

Fetch my config file from here config-2.6.36-f14-new

then create your own .config file in the kernel directory:

    cp config-2.6.36-f14-new .config

Edit it to alter this line, which defines the kernel suffix, if you wish:

    CONFIG_LOCALVERSION="f14-new"

Then do this (which can take a long time and compile far more modules than you need!)

    make oldconfig
    ## alternatively 'make menuconfig' or 'make xconfig'
    ## as explained in the README file.
    make
    make modules_install
    make install

This should create a new vmlinuz and other files in /boot (using the suffix you provided in the .config file).

It wll also edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf (or menu.lst) file.

Check that file very carefully to make sure you know what it does.
If it contains a 'hiddenmenu' command, remove it so that you always see the boot options.
(The default in fedora is to hide the boot menu which is UTTERLY stupid, especially for newcomers who wish to have fedora and a previous installation of windows available.)

The 'default' line in grub.conf or menu.lst specifies which kernel to boot into by default. E.g. 'default 0' means use the first one in the list.

You might wish to make sure that the default is one that you know works, until you have tried the new kernel to make sure it is usable.

At the end of the kernel line starting:

    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.36f14-new

I added these options, though I don't know if the last one is necessary:

    KEYTABLE=uk i915.modeset=1 video=card0-HDMI

I also removed this file in the previously created /etc/X11 directory:

    /etc/X11/xorg.conf

This system now seems to work fine using my preferred mode of operation, namely booting into a text console, then using 'startx' to go into graphic mode.

I can attach a monitor and run 'xrandr', but for some reason 'lxrandr' has stopped working in this configuration.

So to make the system detect and use an external display I use this command:

    xrandr --auto

This kernel also allows me to use the SDHC card reader built into the E5410, which I could not do with Fedora 13, using the configuration described below.

This kernel does not include tuxonice (software suspend 2) but the 'pm-hibernate' command seems to work ok, though the display while suspending and resuming is not as nice as tuxonice. When a tuxonice kernel 2.6.37 or later for Fedora 14 becomes available, I'll try that.

Notes on building a 2.6.36 kernel for Fedora 14 This is a supplement to the file on using my Dell Latitude E6410 with Fedora: here.

Notes on building a 2.6.36 kernel for Fedora 14
This is a supplement to the file on using my Dell Latitude E6410 with Fedora: here.