Custom Ubuntu 64 bit Kernel 3.6.7 optimized for i3/i5/i7

This time my experiment is bit different, interesting and ambitious!

I upgraded my i7 RAM to 12 GB (Corsair Vengence 4 GB X 3) and running in triple channel mode (will tell what I did to the old RAM in another story :) )

I ran the kernel compilation in RAM mounted directory so that none of the files are read/written from/to harddisk while doing intensive kernel compilation. Infact processor scaled so well that kernel compilation took just under 19 mins which used to be 25 mins with harddisk. The real advantage is not the speed, but avoiding lots of read/writes to harddisk

To achieve this, I used tmpfs

The built script to build kernel 3.6.7 and utilize 10 GB of RAM for compilation is here

Use the above script only if you have above 10 GB of RAM

If you have less RAM use the script here

First, I created a directory and mounted that as a tmpfs. I gave a size of 10 GB RAM max for the newly mounted tmpfs.

The commands I used to create a directory and mount tmpfs is as follows

mkdir -p ~/BuildTmp

sudo mount -t tmpfs -o size=10G tmpfs ~/BuildTmp

To check the disk file size and monitor how the tmpfs is filling up, I used df -k

df -k

Calling df -k at various points of kernel compilation

 Towards the end of kernel compilation df -k reports 79 percent of 10 GB tmpfs, which is nearly 7.9 GB of RAM used!!

See the compilation time, not much gain in speed but small gain is a gain (a gain of 6 minutes)

Copying the compiled kernel debian files to harddisk

Installing the built kernel files

Unmounting tmpfs before rebooting

sudo umount ~/BuildTmp

Installing nvidia drivers for the newly built kernel, I downloaded 310.19 driver from nvidia.co.in

http://in.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/310.19/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-310.19.run

Here is a video of how I built nvidia kernel module using recovery kernel, (video is shot using my phone and I am not a professional photographer, it is just for learning purpose I uploaded this video to youtube)

http://youtu.be/UUtvhMsIQ7o

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUtvhMsIQ7o

It is simple, reboot and select recovery kernel, install nvidia driver using nvidia provided shell script, reboot into normal kernel

Here are the photographs explaining the same which was shown in video. (sorry for poor images with photo flash)

Select recovery kernel (second one usually in the boot loader screen)

 Booting into recovery...

Scroll down and select root Drop to root shell prompt

mount root filesystem read/write (and mount home if you have a separate home system) as root in recovery is mounted read only

mount -o remount,rw /
mount /home

Change to home directory where the nvidia driver is downloaded

run the driver using sh (replace the below file with whatever the driver filename using tab, :) )

sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-310.19.run

Let nvidia installer launch

Accept nvidia license termns

Opt to uninstall previous drivers

Continue installation anyway? yes (Sorry it is blurred ...)

Register for dkms (what, no I say)

And that is it, rest by the installer ...

Install 32 bit compatibility openGL libs? yes of course

Let it run its way (won't you)

run nvidia-xconfig, yes man, yes, do it

Ah, give ok

cd
sync
unmount /home
mount -o remount,ro /
reboot

Unmount home and remount root read only, then reboot

From the boot loader, select the regular kernel (the first one, second is usually recovery kernel)

Now you should be into the gui with nice nvidia drivers, enjoy