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

[William Park]

On 2025-12-02 15:49, Jason Eckert wrote:
> 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.

But, I downloaded directly from kernel.org, and I'm not using anything 
from Fedora.  Unless, kernel Makefile has hook, that Fedora uses, but 
Debian/Ubuntu don't.  Makefile does mention something about 
"/sbin/installkernel".

>
> 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/

Yeah, this is what I ended up doing, like the old days.

>
> 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 my Fedora KDE 43, it errors out,

     make[2]: *** No rule to make target 'installkernel'.  Stop.

I usually use LMDE to cross-compile for ARM, because the ARM boards 
themselves run Debian.  In fact, both run Debian 13.2.

Since Linus Torvalds runs Fedora, I thought I give it a spin, at least 
for cross-compiling.  Of course, there is good reason why Linus would 
use Fedora.  It's the latest.  OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is also latest, but 
Fedora may be more reliable.  I don't think Ubuntu has anything at this 
level.
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