Compiling a kernel on Linux is very easy using the command line. You may download the latest mainline kernel from kernel.org. This is 3.15. Extract the file using this command.
tar -xvf linux-3.15.tar.xz |
Clean the source tree using this command.
make mrproper |
Then open the configuration menus using this command.
make menuconfig |
If you get an error for missing ncurses libraries; use this command to install the development headers.
sudo apt-get install ncurses-devel |
Then begin the compilation with this command.
make && make modules |
Once the compilation has completed; install the modules thusly.
sudo make modules_install |
And install the new kernel this way.
sudo make install |
Now that the kernel is installed; the source tree must be prepared. Perform this task by typing this command.
sudo make clean prepare |
Then copy the entire source tree to /usr/src/linux-headers-3.15. I used Midnight Commander for this. This will allow you to build drivers for Virtualbox and the graphics drivers against the new kernel. This worked for me when I tried this; but I get an error when I try to build the ATI drivers against this kernel. But I am using the Radeon driver instead.
homer@deusexmachina ~ $ lsmod | grep radeon radeon 1310147 0 i2c_algo_bit 13503 1 radeon ttm 77524 1 radeon drm_kms_helper 51307 1 radeon drm 277005 4 ttm,drm_kms_helper,radeon |
That works very well.