Custom Kernel for Arch Linux Intallation

Motivation

We want to boot a existing Arch Linux installation with a custom configured manually compiled Linux kernel.
We assume systemd-boot as boot manager.

Steps

  1. Clone Git repository of Linux kernel
  2. Configure and build kernel
    make localyesconfig
make nconfig # adjust stuff
make -j$(nproc)
  3. Installation
    IDENT=custom

# modules
make modules
sudo make modules_install

# kernel
make bzImage
cp -v arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-${IDENT}

# initrd
cp /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux-${IDENT}.preset
mkinitcpio -p linux-${IDENT}
  4. Configure bootloader
  5. Reboot
    sudo systemctl reboot --boot-loader-entry=arch-${IDENT}.conf

See Also