[Cbe-oss-dev] A simple PS3 question...

[Jim Paris]

> Thanks for the response. Yes, I did run a 'make ps3-defconfig' before
> running a 'make'; otherwise the kernel does not even build. More
> specifically, here are the steps I took:
> 
> 1. make ps3-defconfig
> 
> 2. make menuconfig ---> Made some minor changes like turning on PREEMPT
> flag, exporting the kernel config via /proc/config.gz etc. Nothing I did
> here should generate an unbootable kernel; but if there are gotcha's here,
> please let me know because this is the first time I am trying to build a
> kernel for the PS3 and it is not going very well as you can see.
>
> 3. make -j 4 // To take advantage of the 2 PPE cores.
> 
> 4. sudo make modules_install
> 
> 5. sudo make install
> 
> These are exactly the steps I take to build and install a kernel on a PC
> running Fedora Core x.
> 
> The 'make install' step placed a vmlinux (i.e. uncompressed image) in the
> /boot directory and did not change the yaboot.conf file. Notice that the
> Fedora kernels for PS3 are compressed images and they do change the
> /boot/yaboot.conf when installed by the yum updater and on a PC the 'make
> install' step changes /boot/grub/grub.conf file automatically to add the new
> kernel as a boot option.

"make install" is arch- and distro- specific.  On PPC it will just
copy vmlinux into /boot, or call /sbin/installkernel if it exists.

Kernels installed by the yum updater are going to have their own yum
scripts that aren't related to the kernel makefile "make install"
rule.

You might be using the wrong image.  Maybe you just need to strip
vmlinux ("strip /boot/vmlinux")?  That's what this page suggests:
  http://www.elliptique.net/wiki/doku.php?id=fedora11-ps3
I don't recall and I can't check; my PS3 isn't capable of running
Linux at the moment.

> One question that I have is: why do the steps 1-5 above, when executed on a
> PC, generates a compressed image whereas on a PS3 generates an uncompressed
> image?

See arch/powerpc/boot/Makefile vs arch/x86/boot/Makefile.


Sorry I don't have more specific answers.  If nothing else you should
be able to pull apart the Fedora SRPM for their kernel image and do
whatever they do to build it.
  http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/11/Fedora/source/SRPMS/kernel-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.src.rpm

-jim