The current Ubuntu installer disc comes with the Linux kernel 3.0.0, but I’m planning to buy an OCZ RevoDrive 3 which has drivers in the 3.2 kernel. So I upgraded the kernel on the installer disc. Here’s how it’s done.

You’ll need these scripts through the process.

Extracting the installer image

1. Download Ubuntu Alternate Installation CD image
2. Mount it: mount -o loop ubuntu-11.10-alternate-amd64.iso /media/cdrom
3. Copy the contents of the CD to the HDD: rsync -av /media/cdrom/ /opt/cd-image

Generating GPG keys for the image

4. We have to sign the CD when we are done with modifying, so we have to generate our own private key. Run gpg –gen-key
5. We have to recompile the original ubuntu-keyring package and include our own key in it:

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   apt-get source ubuntu-keyring cd ubuntu-keyring-2010.+09.30/keyrings gpg --import < ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg gpg --export > ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

6. Note down your key ID, list all keys with gpg –list-keys, your key ID will be the hex number after the first / sign (for example: pub 1024D/447C4545 2006-09-08 – key ID here is /447C4545)
7. Build the ubuntu-keyring package (replace YOURKEYID with your key ID): cd ..; dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -m”Norbert Varga ” -kYOURKEYID
8. Copy the freshly built ubuntu-keyring package to the installer CD: cd ..; cp ubuntu-keyring*deb /opt/cd-image/pool/main/u/ubuntu-keyring
9. Now you have two choices:

Using a precompiled Ubuntu PPA kernel

10. Download your desired kernel package from the Ubuntu kernel PPA. If you want to use a 64bit kernel, you have to download all the files ending with -amd64.deb (headers, image) plus the files ending with -all.deb (headers).
11. Install the package on your system (you can remove it later if you don’t need it): dpkg -i linux-image-3.2.0-030200rc2-generic_3.2.0-030200rc2.201111151435_amd64.deb
12. You need to figure out the kernel image file name for your new kernel: cd /boot; ls | grep vmlinuz
    Copy this image file (overwriting the original) to /opt/cd-image/install/vmlinuz

13. You need to figure out the initramfs file name for your new kernel: ls | grep initrd
    Copy this file to /opt/cd-image/install/initrd.gz (the file is already compressed, you don’t have to run gzip)
14. If you don’t have an initrd file for the new kernel, you can make one: update-initramfs -ck module-name-for-new-kernel (in my case it’s 3.2.0-030200rc2-generic, you can find this out by cd /lib/modules; ls)

Building your own kernel

10. Run apt-get install git-core kernel-package fakeroot build-essential ncurses-dev
11. Download and extract the kernel image: wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/testing/linux-3.2-rc2.tar.bz2; tar -xjvf linux-3.2-rc2.tar.bz2
12. Get an Ubuntu kernel .config, from your /boot dir or by downloading a matching kernel package from the Ubuntu kernel PPA. Overwrite the kernel source’s .config with it.
13. Run yes ” | make oldconfig and make menuconfig if you want to modify the settings
14. Edit scripts/setlocalversion and comment out the line “echo “+””. If this is not done, make-kpkg will fail to build the packages with an error “package linux-image-[kernel version]-custom+ not in control info”.
15. make-kpkg clean; CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=`getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN` fakeroot make-kpkg –initrd –append-to-version=-mycustomkernel kernel_image kernel_headers

Updating modules in the initrd file

16. Extract the contents of the current initrd file: cd; mkdir initrd; cd initrd; gunzip -c /opt/cd-image/install/initrd.gz | cpio -i
17. Empty the initrd directory’s lib/modules, copy all modules from /lib/modules/yourdesiredkernelmodules to the initrd directory’s lib/modules/yourdesiredkernelmodules
18. Repackage the initrd file: cd ~/initrd; find . | cpio -H newc -o | gzip > /opt/cd-image/install/initrd.gz

Updating the kernel installer package

19. Remove everything from /opt/cd-image/pool/main/l/linux/ except the libc package.
20. Copy your kernel image and header packages here (both -amd64.deb and -all.deb needed, so at the end there will be 4 files here including the libc package)
21. Update the meta packages’ dependencies that they point to your new kernel: cd /opt/cd-image/pool/main/l/linux-meta; videbcontrol linux-image-generic_3.0.0.12.14_amd64.deb and edit the line beginning with Depends:, update linux-headers-generic_3.0.0.12.14_amd64.deb also
22. Note that the videbcontrol script doesn’t overwrite the original .deb packages, don’t forget to manually overwrite the originals. Look at other dependencies of your kernel packages and make sure the needed packages are in the installer CD pool.

Building the .iso

23. Run: 01-getindices; 02-buildrepo; 03-mkiso
24. You need to run 01-getindices only one time, then if you modify something, only 02-buildrepo and 03-mkiso are needed
25. Try the .iso in VirtualBox or VMware. If it says invalid video mode, just press space, and if the installer complains about missing modules, just continue installing (we have our modules in one big kernel-image .deb package, there are no separate module packages)