Kernel

The Linux kernel is the core of the operating system and offers an interface for programs to access the hardware. The kernel contains most of the device drivers.

Installation
To create a kernel, it is necessary to install the kernel source code first. The recommended kernel sources for a desktop system are. These are maintained by the Gentoo developers, and patched to fix security vulnerabilities, functional problems, as well as to improve compatibility with rare system architectures.

Before installing check the active USE flags. The USE flags of gentoo-sources are:


 * deblob - Remove binary blobs from kernel sources to provide free software compliance.
 * build - (Not recommended) Only for creating stages. Never set this USE flag yourself.
 * symlink - Sets the /usr/src/linux symlink for these kernel sources.

Now install gentoo-sources:

There are various alternative kernel sources in the Portage tree:


 * - The official, non-patched Linux kernel sources. Because they do not contain patches applied by the Gentoo developers, they do not offer support for them.


 * A full list with short descriptions can be found by searching with emerge:



or with eix:

Manual configuration and setup
This the perceived silver bullet enables you, with quite some effort, to create a custom-fit kernel configuration. See:


 * kernel configuration
 * kernel upgrade

genkernel: automatic configuration and setup
genkernel is a tool to automatically configure and setup a kernel. The needed drivers for your system are detected and loaded at boot time. See the genkernel article.

Removing
See the kernel removal article on how to remove old kernels.

Links

 * Kernel homepage