Compiling a Linux Kernel

If you're interested in ARM Linux kernels, please see this page: ARM Linux Kernel

We supply a repository of patches against the Linux kernel that enables some M5 features and provides default configuration files that work with M5. The repository is a Mercurial Queue (MQ) that is intended to be applied on top of a Linux repository. To compile a kernel using our patches repository you'll need to get a copy of the linux-2.6 repository first. Once you have the repository, you'll need to select the version of Linux you wish to compile, select the appropriate version of patches for that version of Linux, apply the patches, and then compile. Step-by-step instructions are provided below.

Note that only certain specific versions of Linux are supported (as of this writing, the list includes 2.6.13, 2.6.16, 2.6.18, 2.6.22, and 2.6.27). To see a full list, type hg qguard -l in the linux-2.6 repository with the m5 patch queue, and look for the version number to appear on the right side of one of the patches. There is nothing preventing the patches from working with other kernel versions. However, no one has gone through the effort of verifying that the patches apply cleanly to other versions. (If you do make this effort, please let us know so we can update the patch queue.)

The correct way to use the patches repository is the following (assuming 2.6.27):

# Get a copy of the linux-2.6 mercurial repository
hg clone http://www.kernel.org/hg/linux-2.6/

# Get a copy of our patches to linux
cd linux-2.6/.hg
hg clone http://repo.m5sim.org/linux-patches/ patches

# Return to the root linux directory
cd ..

# Update the linux source to the desired version (can take 5 minutes)
# (see discussion above for supported versions)
hg update v2.6.27

# Select tho appropriate patches for the version of linux you selected 
hg qselect 2.6.27

# Apply the patches
hg qpush -a

# Copy the default configuration file, so it's used
cp .config.m5 .config

# Compile the kernel (assuming the cross compiler is in $PATH, otherwise full path would need to be specified)
# The dash after gnu is required.
make ARCH=alpha CROSS_COMPILE=alpha-unknown-linux-gnu- vmlinux