Compile Kernel as non-root user

[pingp]

According to Q&A

Important Warning: The kernel developers advise against uncompressing the kernel source code, configuring or building the kernel as root. It should be done as an ordinary user. Only the one or two commands needed to install the kernel and the modules should be run as root. There have been bugs in the build process in the past which have caused files in /dev to be deleted when run as root and uncompressing the kernel archive as root can lead to some files getting the wrong permissions. gkh-lkn: "None of the primary kernel developers build kernels as root"

This FAQ will consider two possible scenarios for a first or the first series of kernel compilations: using genkernel with the "--menuconfig" argument or running "make menuconfig" from the top of the kernel source tree.

Using just "genkernel all" may give you a kernel which boots but, later on, you may want to remove the modules you don't need and, at that point, this is the FAQ for you.

There are two possible settings for a kernel compilation, during installation while chroot'ed to your root filesystem and within a running Gentoo installation.

There are instructions on chroot'ing in the Handbook and the QuickInstall Guide but it seems worthwhile giving a potted version here to make it less likely that something isn't forgotten in going backwards and forwards.

But in hand book (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=7), the source is obtained through "emerge gentoo-sources", so that they belong to root user, right? How is the right way to access and compile source?

[didymos]

Yeah, it fetches the source and unpacks it. That's it. It doesn't build a kernel. You can alter the permissions on the source directory.
_________________
Thomas S. Howard

[PaulBredbury]

No-one bothers, as far as I can tell. Whilst this is technically a risk, it's a very small risk.

[didymos]

[devsk]

[Cyker]

When I was a Slacker, I used to compile *everything* in my home dir in ~/src.

But I found that almost *anything* that did anything to the kernel (ALSA, lm_sensors, nVidia drivers, wifi crap etc.) would 'work', but in new and unusual meanings of 'work'.

I toyed with chgrp'ing the entire source tree to a group I made (source) with all the x6x and x7x permissions, but that didn't really work either.

After that I just did it as root.

There seemed to be two problems:
1) Things assuming the kernel source is in /usr/src/linux
Despite the fact that 'everyone' (Ah yes, that mystical meta-entity) says that /usr/src/linux is deprecated and shouldn't be used, the symlink is still alive and strong.
2) Things freaking out when they find things aren't root:root during some as-yet unknown part of the make.
But I never found anything that should cause this!

Often the whole process would work and even compile, but then later I'd get some weird obscure issues popping up with certain kernel modules not working properly.

I haven't tried since Slackware 8, and now since Gentoo seems to want to put the entire source in /usr/src as root:root and symlink to linux, I just go with the flow

[Hu]

[devsk]