Vishal Bhoj

Portable and repeatable Linux kernel builds with TuxMake

TuxMake is a command line tool that eases building Linux kernel. Though it is already simple to build Linux kernel using make defconfig; make, it becomes complicated when there are too many combinations that has to be supported, such as the following:

• Architectures
• Toolchains
• Configurations
• Targets
• Build-time validation

TuxMake simplifies building the Linux kernel by providing a consistent command line interface with different combinations listed above. TuxMake makes it more interesting by providing a curated, portable build environment that is distributed as Docker/Podman container images. Thus, it becomes easy to report and reproduce build failures using TuxMake’s consistent command line.

Who is your audience?

Those who have already built Linux kernel and know how to build Linux kernel in their local machines.

What will they get out of it?

They will get to learn about TuxMake free software tool (soon to be included in Debian), that can ease their Linux kernel building workflow and provide an easy way to get reproducible command line with TuxMake.

What will you cover?

In this presentation, we will take a look on how to use TuxMake. We will cover different use-cases starting with a simple build, then looking at cross builds, incremental builds, etc.