Easier Red Hat kernel builds

I was getting ready to compile a brand new RedHat kernel (I needed some kind of cutting edge support okay). As you all know, fresh kernel source doesn't come with a handy .config file in /usr/src/linux from which you can more or less just run. You have to do your make config (or make xconfig) and turn on all those things that a RedHat distribution (or Mandrake or . . . ) has by default, namely all those great little modules.

But wait! If you go to the /usr/src/linux/configs directory, you'll see a bunch of kernel .config files pre-configured to included support for several diferent configurations. Just copy one over to /usr/src/linux/.config and modify that one instead.

cd /usr/src/linux/configs
cp kernel-2.4.9-i686.config ../.config
cd ..
make xconfig ( here you make your own specific changes )

Of course, it means building a lot of modules you don't need, but then again, you won't be missing them either and it saves you a lot of keystrokes.