How to apply kernel patches

Question

I've been installing kernels from mainline repository - all simple there, just *.deb files, one can do simple dpkg -i on them. But how can one apply the patches 0001-base-packaging.patch , 0002-debian-changelog.patch, 0003-configs-based-on-Ubuntu-4.4.0-0.10.patch manually ?

Answer 1

As stated in README at mainline:

These binary packages represent builds of the mainline or stable Linux kernel tree at the commit below:

v4.4 (afd2ff9b7e1b367172f18ba7f693dfb62bdcb2dc)

To obtain the source from which they are built fetch the commit below:

git://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel-test/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/mainline-crack v4.4

and apply the following patches on top in the order below:

0001-base-packaging.patch
0002-debian-changelog.patch
0003-configs-based-on-Ubuntu-4.4.0-0.10.patch

This means that you need to apply those patches only if you are building your kernel from source and not from *.deb.

In case if you are building it from source, then these are the steps you need to follow:

1. Install these packages:

   sudo apt-get install git build-essential kernel-package fakeroot libncurses5-dev
   

2. Get the source code:

   mkdir anyname; cd anyname
   git clone git://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel-test/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/mainline-crack v4.4
   

3. Copy the patches files.

4. Change to kernel directory:

   cd v4.4
   

5. Make any custom changes.

6. Apply patches:

   patch -p1 < ~/anyname/0001-base-packaging.patch
   patch -p1 < ~/anyname/0002-debian-changelog.patch
   patch -p1 < ~/anyname/0003-configs-based-on-Ubuntu-4.4.0-0.10.patch
   

7. Make:

   cp /boot/config-`uname -r` .config
   gedit .config
   
   make oldconfig
   make menuconfig
   
   make clean
   make -j `getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN` deb-pkg LOCALVERSION=-custom
   

8. Install generated deb:

   sudo dpkg -i ../*.deb
   

9. Update GRUB and reboot:

   sudo update-grub; sudo reboot