linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v1] docs: describe how to quickly build Linux

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Message-ID: <Y9peNbWUR9JmTJbo@kroah.com>
Date:   Wed, 1 Feb 2023 13:42:29 +0100
From:   Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:     Thorsten Leemhuis <linux@...mhuis.info>
Cc:     Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>,
        Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@...il.com>,
        linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        regressions@...ts.linux.dev
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1] docs: describe how to quickly build Linux

On Wed, Feb 01, 2023 at 12:52:30PM +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> Add a text explaining how to quickly build a kernel, as that's something
> users will often have to do when they want to report an issue or test
> proposed fixes. This is a huge and frightening task for quite a few
> users these days, as many rely on pre-compiled kernels and have never
> built their own. They find help on quite a few websites explaining the
> process in various ways, but those howtos often omit important details
> or make things too hard for the 'quickly build just for testing' case
> that 'localmodconfig' is really useful for. Hence give users something
> at hand to guide them, as that makes it easier for them to help with
> testing, debugging, and fixing the kernel.

First off, this is great, thanks for doing this.

One minor comment, to prevent people from "overloading" the
git.kernel.org systems:

> +.. _sources_sbs:
> +
> + * Retrieve the sources of the Linux version you intend to build; then change
> +   into the directory holding them, as all further commands in this guide are
> +   meant to be executed from there.
> +
> +   If you plan to only build one particular kernel version, download its source
> +   archive from https://kernel.org; afterwards extract its content to '~/linux/'
> +   and change into the directory created during extraction.
> +
> +   In most other situations your best choice is to fetch the sources using git::
> +
> +          git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git \
> +            ~/linux/sources
> +          cd ~/linux/sources/

Ideally you should never do a "full clone from scratch" like this, as it
takes up loads of server resources.  The "best" way to do this is to
download the kernel git bundle, and then pull and resolve the remaining
bits.  It's explained, with a script to do the work for you, here:

	https://kernel.org/best-way-to-do-linux-clones-for-your-ci.html

Using that will save you time (the CI bundles are mirrored around the
world), and greatly reduce the server load (which is already high
enough.)

thanks,

greg k-h