Android Raspberry Pi Kernel Build Walkthrough

I've had some queries on the blog about building the Raspberry Pi kernel I hacked together. Here are the instructions on how to compile the Android kernel for the Raspberry Pi environment.

This kernel should work with the headless Android filesystem.

NOTE: Since I have not been able to get my hands on the hardware I haven't tried it myself. You are on your own with this. I doubt it works right out of the box...

Build Instructions

All build instructions reference the base directory where you want to put the source files. For me I used:
export RASP_SRC_BASE=~/work/raspberry-pi

Get the kernel sources for linux-3.1.9

mkdir -p $RASP_SRC_BASE/kernel/patches

cd $RASP_SRC_BASE/kernel
wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/linux-3.1.9.tar.bz2
tar jxvf linux-3.1.9.tar.bz2

Apply the Raspberry Pi patch

cd $RASP_SRC_BASE/kernel/patches/
wget http://www.cnx-software.com/patch/r-pi_linux_3.1.9.patch.gz
gunzip r-pi_linux_3.1.9.patch.gz
cd $RASP_SRC_BASE/kernel/linux-3.1.9
patch -p1 < ../patches/r-pi_linux_3.1.9.patch

Get the Toolchain

cd $RASP_SRC_BASE/toolchain
wget https://sourcery.mentor.com/sgpp/lite/arm/portal/package9728/public/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/arm-2011.09-70-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2
tar jxvf arm-2011.09-70-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2 

Set up the environment variables

export PATH=$PATH:$RASP_SRC_BASE/toolchain/arm-2011.09/bin
export CROSS_COMPILE=$RASP_SRC_BASE/toolchain/arm-2011.09/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi-
export ARCH=arm
export CCACHE_DIR=~/.ccache/
export USE_CCACHE=1

Make sure the build works

At this point, configure and build the Raspberry Pi kernel.

Configure the kernel

cd $RASP_SRC_BASE/kernel/linux-3.1.9
cp arch/arm/configs/bcmrpi_cutdown_defconfig .config
make oldconfig

Make the kernel

make -k -j6

Apply the Android kernel patch

cd $RASP_SRC_BASE/kernel/patches/
wget https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24888185/android_3.1.9_patch.tar.gz
gunzip android_3.1.9_patch.tar.gz
cd $RASP_SRC_BASE/kernel/linux-3.1.9
patch -p1 < ../patches/linux-3.1.9-stock-to-android.patch
patch -p1 < ../patches/linux-3.1.9-fs-proc-base.patch
patch -p1 < ../patches/linux-3.1.9-yaffs2.patch
patch -p1 < ../patches/linux-3.1.9-power.patch

Build Raspberry Pi Android

You are ready to build the Raspberry Pi Android kernel now.

Configure the kernel

cd $RASP_SRC_BASE/kernel/linux-3.1.9
wget https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24888185/rasp_android_defconfig.gz
gunzip rasp_android_defconfig.gz
mv rasp_android_defconfig .config

Make the kernel

make -k -j6