VERY EXPERIMENTAL

seems to work so far on amd64 and x86



DEPENDANCIES:

- bootsplash

- gcc/binutils

- bash



INSTALLATION:



put genkernel.conf in /etc



put genkernel executable in /usr/bin



put the rest of the files and directories in /usr/share/genkernel







PORTING:



To port to other arches:



cd /usr/share/genkernel

cp -Rp x86 ${myarch}

mkdir /usr/share/genkernel/pkg/${myarch}





modify what is needed in the /usr/share/genkernel/${myarch}

directory, this is all the arch-specific stuff, as well

as a generic kernel-config 





IMPORTANT KERNEL NOTES:

- You MUST have devfs turned on at this time, but you MUST NOT

  have "Automatically mount at boot" option turned on. 

- You MUST have /dev/pts turned on

- If you want Bootsplash, you MUST have VESAFB enabled for 2.6,

  other framebuffers won't work.  You MUST also enable

  "video mode selection support" and "Framebuffer Console support"

- To build a kernel with GenKernel you must have  

  "Block devices->Loopback device support"  

  "Block devices->RAM disk support"

- To boot genkernel properly, the kernel config must have

  RAM disk support and Initial RAM disk support.  You should

  also set your "Default RAM disk size to 8192"





BOOTING A KERNEL WITH INITRD:



GRUB:

real_root= needs to point to your root partition

root=  needs to point to the ramdisk (should stay at /dev/ram0)

init= needs to point to the linuxrc file to execute on the ramdisk

vga=  should be the resolution you want your screen at  0x317 indicates

      1024x768 - 16bpp   and you'll get a pretty bootsplash if configured properly





GRUB EXAMPLE ENTRY:

title=Linux 2.6.0 genkernel

root (hd0,0)

kernel (hd0,0)/boot/kernel-2.6.0-gentoo root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc real_root=/dev/hda3 vga=0x317

initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-2.6.0-gentoo