I will not tell you how to build and install custom Linux kernel on your machine, you can find many many [resources](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=building+linux+kernel#q=building+linux+kernel+from+source+code) that will help you to do it. Instead, we will know what does occur when you are typed `make` in the directory with Linux kernel source code in this part. When I just started to learn source code of the Linux kernel, the [Makefile](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Makefile) file was a first file that I've opened. And it was scary :) This [makefile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_%28software%29) contains `1591` lines of code at the time when I wroute this part and it was [third](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/52721d9d3334c1cb1f76219a161084094ec634dc) release candidate.
I will not tell you how to build and install custom Linux kernel on your machine, you can find many many [resources](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=building+linux+kernel#q=building+linux+kernel+from+source+code) that will help you to do it. Instead, we will know what does occur when you are typed `make` in the directory with Linux kernel source code in this part. When I just started to learn source code of the Linux kernel, the [Makefile](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Makefile) file was a first file that I've opened. And it was scary :) This [makefile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_%28software%29) contains `1591` lines of code at the time when I wrote this part and it was [third](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/52721d9d3334c1cb1f76219a161084094ec634dc) release candidate.
This makefile is the the top makefile in the Linux kernel source code and kernel build starts here. Yes, it is big, but moreover, if you've read the source code of the Linux kernel you can noted that all directories with a source code has an own makefile. Of course it is not real to describe how each source files compiled and linked. So, we will see compilation only for the standard case. You will not find here building of the kernel's documentation, cleaning of the kernel source code, [tags](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctags) generation, [cross-compilation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_compiler) related stuff and etc. We will start from the `make` execution with the standard kernel configuration file and will finish with the building of the [bzImage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vmlinux#bzImage).
Ewoud Kohl van Wijngaarden
9 years ago