Saving make menuconfig only does what?

[frank56]

When you cd /usr/src/linux then make menuconfig, make one or a dozen changes, and click SAVE, after closing. What are the consequences of not doing anything else other than saving, the config?

I other posts I have seen some make the distinction between modifying an existing kernel and compiling a different version.

Will the changes made do anything, or any good, or any damage or harm? If not followed up with another action? Frank

[jayd512]

From what I understand, making changes to the menuconfig does nothing until you do make and make install.
Changes to that file actually have to be implemented before they will affect the running kernel.

[frank56]

From what I understand, making changes to the menuconfig does nothing until you do make and make install.
Changes to that file actually have to be implemented before they will affect the running kernel.

Thanks Jay. Is there any other actions needed after make and makeinstall? I take it one has the option of doing either, the option you mention, or make && make modules_install.

[jayd512]

Correct you are
I forgot the part about the module install

You, yeah. Those are the only steps needed.
But thinking back, I have a simpler command if you would prefer:

make all && make modules_install

[frank56]

I had one more question. I know just after you configure a new kernel, one is asked to cp /arch/i386/boot/bzImage, but do we need to do that after every make && make modules_install ?

[jayd512]

The short answer... I believe so. I always did.
The bzImage contains boot sector info, setup config info, and a few other important things.
I don't know all of the technical details involved, but I'm pretty sure that copying all of that over to (normally) /boot/vmlinuz allows the system to locate all of that on startup.

[frank56]

The short answer... I believe so. I always did.
The bzImage contains boot sector info, setup config info, and a few other important things.
I don't know all of the technical details involved, but I'm pretty sure that copying all of that over to (normally) /boot/vmlinuz allows the system to locate all of that on startup.

I have run into error messages after the first cp command, like cannot stat, file not found, or something like that. I wonder why that happens, more after the first cp command.

[jayd512]

Are these the commands that you mean? Or similar?

cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz
cp System.map /boot

I haven't needed to compile my own kernel recently, but my understanding is that after copying the bzImage, the System.map is required.
Any errors after that can be attributed to a misconfiguration in your kernel, or perhaps to your boot-loader config.