GNet Solutions » Hardware Hacking » Raspberry Pi

While playing around trying to get ZFS to work properly on my Raspberry Pi 2 running Arch Linux, I decided to recompile the Linux kernel with ZFS support built in. This is a guide on my attempts, may eat your cat.

Prepare the Environment¶

• Make sure the system is up to dat:
  

  pacman -Syu
  

• Install a few dependencies:
  

  pacman -S base-devel git make gcc bc wget rsync screen ncurses
  

Download the Kernel¶

• Switch to a source directory and download the Raspberry Pi toolchain:
  

  cd /usr/src
  git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/tools
  

• Export the toolchain path:
  

  export CCPREFIX=/usr/src/tools/arm-bcm2708/arm-bcm2708-linux-gnueabi/bin/arm-bcm2708-linux-gnueabi-
  

• Download the latest kernel from GitHub:
  

  git clone -b rpi-4.1.y http://github.com/raspberrypi/linux
  

• Then export the kernel source path:
  

  export KERNEL_SRC=/usr/src/linux
  

Build the Kernel¶

• Prepare the kernel build environment:
  

  cd /usr/src/linux
  make mrproper
  

• Load the current config into the kernel source directory:
  

  zcat /proc/config.gz > /usr/src/linux/.config
  

• Use the previous kernel config with the new kernel build environment:
  

  make oldconfig
  

  • (Optional) Modify the current kernel source configuration:
    

    make menuconfig
    

• Build the kernel:
  

  make -j4
  

• Install the kernel modules:
  

  make modules_install
  

• Then backup the old kernel and copy over the new kernel:
  

  cp /boot/kernel7.img /boot/kernel7.old.img
  cp /usr/src/linux/arch/arm/boot/Image /boot/kernel7.img
  

• Reboot into the new kernel:
  

  reboot
  

Resources¶

• http://lostindetails.com/blog/post/Compiling-a-kernel-module-for-the-raspberry-pi-2
• http://openstack.prov12n.com/openstack-on-raspberry-pi-part-2-getting-started/
• https://raspberrypicloud.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/building-an-lxc-friendly-kernel-for-the-raspberry-pi/
• http://elinux.org/Raspberry_Pi_Kernel_Compilation