Building the kernel involves a few steps: configuring it and compiling it. There are a few ways to configure the kernel. If you don't like the way this book does it, read the README that comes with the kernel source tree, and find out what the other options are. Something you could do, is take the .config file from your host distribution's kernel source tree and copy it to $LFS/usr/src/linux-&kernel-version;. This way you don't have to configure the entire kernel from scratch and can use your current values. If you choose to do this, first run the make mrproper command below, then copy the .config file over, then run make menuconfig followed by the rest of the commands (make oldconfig may be better in some situations. See the README file for more details when to use make oldconfig). If you intend to use kernel modules, you will need an /etc/modules.conf file. Information pertaining to modules and to kernel configuration in general may be found in the kernel documentation, which is stored stored in /usr/src/linux-&kernel-version;/Documentation. The modules.conf man page and the kernel HOWTO at may also be of interest to you. Prepare for compilation by running the following command: make mrproper This ensures that the kernel tree is absolutely clean. The kernel team recommends that this command be issued prior to each kernel compilation. You shouldn't rely on the source tree being clean after untarring. make menuconfig && make dep && make bzImage && make modules && make modules_install Kernel compilation has finished, but the files created are still in the source tree. The path to the kernel file, arch/i386/boot/bzImage below, may vary depending on the platform you're using. cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/lfskernel && cp System.map /boot