1Overview of Kbuild Commands
224 January 1999
3Michael Elizabeth Chastain, <mailto:mec@shout.net>
4
5
6
7=== Introduction
8
9Someday we'll get our arms around all this stuff and clean it up
10a little!  Meanwhile, this file describes the system as it is today.
11
12
13
14=== Quick Start
15
16If you are building a kernel for the first time, here are the commands
17you need:
18
19    make config
20    make dep
21    make bzImage
22
23Instead of 'make config', you can run 'make menuconfig' for a full-screen
24text interface, or 'make xconfig' for an X interface using TCL/TK.
25
26'make bzImage' will leave your new kernel image in arch/i386/boot/bzImage.
27You can also use 'make bzdisk' or 'make bzlilo'.
28
29See the lilo documentation for more information on how to use lilo.
30You can also use the 'loadlin' program to boot Linux from MS-DOS.
31
32Some computers won't work with 'make bzImage', either due to hardware
33problems or very old versions of lilo or loadlin.  If your kernel image
34is small, you may use 'make zImage', 'make zdisk', or 'make zlilo'
35on theses systems.
36
37If you find a file name 'vmlinux' in the top directory of the source tree,
38just ignore it.  This is an intermediate file and you can't boot from it.
39
40Other architectures: the information above is oriented towards the
41i386.  On other architectures, there are no 'bzImage' files; simply
42use 'zImage' or 'vmlinux' as appropriate for your architecture.
43
44Note: the difference between 'zImage' files and 'bzImage' files is that
45'bzImage' uses a different layout and a different loading algorithm,
46and thus has a larger capacity.  Both files use gzip compression.
47The 'bz' in 'bzImage' stands for 'big zImage', not for 'bzip'!
48
49
50
51=== Top Level Makefile targets
52
53Here are the targets available at the top level:
54
55    make config, make oldconfig, make menuconfig, make xconfig
56
57	Configure the Linux kernel.  You must do this before almost
58	anything else.
59
60	config		line-oriented interface
61	oldconfig	line-oriented interface, re-uses old values
62	menuconfig	curses-based full-screen interface
63	xconfig		X window system interface
64
65    make checkconfig
66
67	This runs a little perl script that checks the source tree for
68	missing instances of #include <linux/config.h>.  Someone needs to
69	do this occasionally, because the C preprocessor will silently give
70	bad results if these symbols haven't been included (it treats
71	undefined symbols in preprocessor directives as defined to 0).
72	Superfluous uses of #include <linux/config.h> are also reported,
73	but you can ignore these, because smart CONFIG_* dependencies
74	make them harmless.
75
76	You can run 'make checkconfig' without configuring the kernel.
77	Also, 'make checkconfig' does not modify any files.
78
79    make checkhelp
80
81	This runs another little perl script that checks the source tree
82	for options that are in Config.in files but are not documented
83	in scripts/Configure.help.  Again, someone needs to do this
84	occasionally.  If you are adding configuration options, it's
85	nice if you do it before you publish your patch!
86
87	You can run 'make checkhelp' without configuring the kernel.
88	Also, 'make checkhelp' does not modify any files.
89
90    make dep, make depend
91
92	'make dep' is a synonym for the long form, 'make depend'.
93
94	This command does two things.  First, it computes dependency
95	information about which .o files depend on which .h files.
96	It records this information in a top-level file named .hdepend
97	and in one file per source directory named .depend.
98
99	Second, if you have CONFIG_MODVERSIONS enabled, 'make dep'
100	computes symbol version information for all of the files that
101	export symbols (note that both resident and modular files may
102	export symbols).
103
104	If you do not enable CONFIG_MODVERSIONS, you only have to run
105	'make dep' once, right after the first time you configure
106	the kernel.  The .hdepend files and the .depend file are
107	independent of your configuration.
108
109	If you do enable CONFIG_MODVERSIONS, you must run 'make dep'
110	every time you change your configuration, because the module
111	symbol version information depends on the configuration.
112
113[to be continued ...]
114