OK - building a kernel takes a little more time (and research) than you would think, but can certainly be done optimally for your needs with a little patience. Gingerbread man provided a nice, simple guide here -
http://gingerbread-man.co.cc/node/4
The time consuming part is at make xconfig (or make menuconfig as you prefer), when you get to configure the kernel options that you need. Running make oldconfig will copy the configuration options from your running kernel, but you will still need to tweak, and having google handy is practically a must to determine what the multitude of options do.
Once you have all your configuration options ready it's a simple matter to build and install the kernel. Since you are running LMDE it's low risk to experiment, since you can always boot with a working kernel and try again if things go wrong. You can also save your .config file and re-use it for future builds.
Note that different kernel version will have some differing options, so you will almost always have to tweak a little.
Edit: I wrote a simple bash script to help things along a little:
Code: Select all
#!/bin/bash
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
echo "Please include a version string"
exit
fi
#patch -p1 <~/kernels/cx88-locking-fixes-v2.patch
cp /boot/config-`uname -r` .config
make oldconfig
make xconfig
make-kpkg clean
fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=$1 kernel_image kernel_headers
Feel free to use it. You run it with ./makekernel.sh roken (where "roken" is a short string you use to identify your kernel). You should CD to your kernel source directory before running it. The script is very simple, and doesn't include error checking (I wrote it to save myself some typing) but it helps to avoid remembering the sequence of commands. At the end you will have the .deb files ready to install.
The commented lines are as follows:
patch - will include kernel patches as necessary. Uncomment and change the path to the patch as required. Copy the line for multiple patches
#cp /boot/config.... - will copy your current kernel config
make oldconfig can be commented out if you want. It's their for legacy reasons and if you use the cp line, not really necessary.
