[Pkg-linux-maint] custom configured kernel from package sources?

[Steve Wray]

Hi there,
I've been trying to work out where, exactly, to post this question.

I'm not on either list and since this is (hopefuly) a one-off I'm not 
going to subscribe at this time so please CC me in on-list replies.

I want to build a kernel package for the Xen subarchitecture with NFS 
root enabled.

I want to use the 2.6.18 kernel and I want to produce a package from the 
Debian sources.

I've done an apt-get source linux-image-2.6.18-4-xen-686
of course, this gets me a more generic kernel source than just the Xen 
one, but I wanted to be certain that I pulled in the exact Debian source 
package which was used to generate the running kernel.


 From what I've read, I need to run split-config, which I got from SVN 
(it doesn't seem to exist anywhere else, its not in the source package 
nor in any other package so far as I can tell).


I've fooled around with  split-config to produce a config to my spec but 
this doesn't seem to actually work.


Usage: /tmp/split-config [options] <config dir> <flavour>
       -a, --arch <arch>        select architecture [i386]
       -s, --subarch <arch>     select sub-architecture []
       -c, --configtype <type>  select config type [menuconfig]
       -h, --help               display this help screen

I tried:

/tmp/split-config --arch i386 --subarch xen debian/arch/i386/xen

and it gave me the help output again. It seems to me that the arguments 
I gave it do indeed match what the 'help' output is asking for. Yes, I 
tried --arch 686 as well.

I've tried various permutations and combinations of architectures and 
subdirectories under debian/arch but to no avail. Everything I tried 
with split-config ended up giving me the 'help' output.

In the absence of anything else I've found online nor documentation for 
split-config, I'm turning to this mailing list.

Can someone please send some instructions on how to produce a kernel 
package for 2.6.18 in the Xen subarchitecture with a user-defined config?

I'm sure this is going to be useful to someone other than myself so 
documenting it, at the very least in the mailing list, would seem to be 
of great benefit for posterity :)

Thanks!