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I used to find the steps on this Ubuntu Wiki page quite useful, especially the bottom section. The instructions on building an upstream kernel (i.e. a kernel from git.kernel.org) with an overlay directory, as instructed on that page, have previously helped me in making a new kernel that was compatible with my Ubuntu installation.

However, it seems these instructions have grown out of date in a few ways:

  • There is no longer a /usr/share/kernel-package directory by default, and the ubuntu package that used to install this directory (kernel-package) seems to have reached the end of its life with Ubuntu Focal - it's not there in the list of Groovy packages.
  • The ubuntu-groovy repository does not have files debian/control-scripts/{postinst,postrm,preinst,prerm}
  • make-kpkg, the command, seems to have disappeared, and I can't easily trace what is to be used in its place.

So... are there new instructions available somewhere? I would like to compile a new kernel to get kernel support for my Wifi card, which I've been using an unofficial driver for all this while, not that it matters all that much why I need a new kernel.

Also, I'm aware of AskUbuntu's norms against questions about using a custom kernel, but this question instead pertains to compiling a new kernel and should be on-topic.

airbornemihir
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    FYI: to me the question is also about the wiki page (I'd have used the wiki tag); I note though the last change made to the wiki page was because of an issue compiling 5.12 kernel this month so at least some consider it up to date (maybe it assumes knowledge you don't have which still means it needs improving) – guiverc Mar 29 '21 at 01:28
  • I just steal the Ubuntu kernel configuration and don't use that section. I don't know if that would solve your issue or not. See here, which was updated earlier this month also, for the newer requirements. – Doug Smythies Mar 29 '21 at 14:14
  • @DougSmythies thanks, that was very pertinent! I built the kernel as you suggested, getting rid of the weird certificate-related option as you suggested for this kernel, v5.12-rc5, after one build failure on that account. However, I still have the original problem I had - somehow the new kernel supports neither my wifi card nor my touchpad. Perhaps figuring out why that is happening is beyond the scope of AskUbuntu - custom kernel-related questions get ignored or removed all the time. – airbornemihir Mar 30 '21 at 02:05
  • Don't you have the patch that adds your required unofficial driver? Or does that somehow occur with the overlay stuff? – Doug Smythies Mar 30 '21 at 03:02
  • @DougSmythies You know what, I think you pointed me in the right direction. I was using make olddefconfig and that was somehow de-configuring my touchpad and my wifi card. I went into the config file and added every RTW and HID option I could see - that fixed it and I'm broadcasting right now from my new kernel. Thanks! – airbornemihir Mar 30 '21 at 05:06
  • Awesome. thanks for reporting back. – Doug Smythies Mar 30 '21 at 06:05

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As suggested by @DougSmythies in this very helpful answer, it's OK to skip the overlay directory stuff which is what I did. I paid a little more attention to configuration options, including scripts/config --set-str SYSTEM_TRUSTED_KEYS "" and got a new kernel that addressed my needs in terms of drivers.

airbornemihir
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