What to do with the source
Now that you have downloaded the proper kernel source, where is it supposed to go? We suggest creating a local directory in your home directory called linux/ to hold all of the different kernel source files:
$ mkdir ~/linux
Now move the source code into this directory:
$ mv ~/linux-2.6.17.8.tar.gz ~/linux/
And go into the linux/ directory:
$cd ~/linux
$ls
linux-2.6.17.8.tar.gz
Now that the source code is in the proper directory, we need to uncompress the tree:
$ tar -xzvf linux-2.6.17.8.tar.gz
The screen will be filled with files that are uncompressed, and you will be left with the following in the linux/ directory:
$ ls
linux-2.6.17.8.tar.gz
linux-2.6.17.8/
Get Linux Kernel in a Nutshell now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.