I am sure this is a really stupid question, but having read through the reference and searched online (some searches involve such common terms they never return anything useful) I have really been unable to find a clear answer. I hope someone here can help.
In the past, as a Slackware user, I never installed an OS where I didn't immediately compile a new kernel. Slack uses a 2.4 kernel, and I use some peripheral items which seem to require, or at least greatly prefer a 2.6 kernel. The process I used was very simple, and I got quite used to it. I downloaded the sources from www.kernel.org and opened them up in /usr/src/. I then would run 'make menuconfig', 'make' and 'make modules_install.' I copied the bzImage into /boot, as well as the System.map and config file. I edited lilo.conf, ran /sbin/lilo and rebooted into the new kernel. All usually went well and I rarely had to look back. However, I cannot find out if this will work in Debian. (I am using grub so obviously the lilo thing would not) The entire system behind everything seems so much more detailed and complex than Slack that I have my doubts this will work at all. Do I have to use kernel sources from Debian? And will this completely throw off dependency situations in apt? Or, is there maybe a Debian tool to compile a kernel which is intended to be used rather than this "classic" method? While things seem fine with the kernel installed from apt, better than fine actually, I figure the day is going to come when I will need to compile a new kernel, and I would like to know if possible what to expect. Not to mention just plain how to do it. Many thanks in advance, Patrick
