[kwlug-disc] Fedora question -- make zinstall doesn't work

[Jason Eckert]

On Fedora, make install and make zinstall are patched by the Fedora kernel
maintainers so that they always try to install into /boot and run grubby.
This behavior is Fedora-specific, and you cannot disable it using
INSTALL_PATH like on Debian.

If you want to copy out the kernel artifacts without triggering Fedora’s
install scripts, you should avoid make install / make zinstall entirely.
Instead use the upstream-standard targets:
make
make modules
make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/your/output/path
make bzImage

Then manually copy the three files you care about:
cp arch/x86/boot/bzImage /your/output/path/vmlinuz
cp System.map /your/output/path/
cp .config /your/output/path/

OR... even simpler - use the built-in target that does not trigger Fedora’s
install hooks:
make INSTALL_PATH=/your/output/path installkernel

This runs only the upstream installkernel script and does not invoke grubby
or Fedora’s /sbin/installkernel override.

On Tue, 2 Dec 2025 at 14:31, William Park via kwlug-disc <
kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> wrote:

> (Double posted, so reply to your list)
>
> Question for Fedora guys...  How do you install kernel on your Fedora?
>
> On Debian/Ubuntu, after compiling kernel, I usually do
>      make zinstall INSTALL_PATH=boot_install
> and the 3 files (vmlinuz config, System.map) will be copied to
> "boot_install/" directory.
>
> On Fedora,
>      - it tries to copy to "/boot", which is not what I want.
>      - it calls out to grub, which is also not what I want.
>
>
>
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