Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Post-Installation Tasks
When the last of these modules finishes copying onto the root partition, make sure
you have
config.txt
on the mounted boot SD card partition configured to boot the
new kernel image (or unconfigured, so that
kernel.img
is booted). Then run the
sync
command a few times to ensure the data has all arrived onto the SD card:
$ sync;sync;sync
Now it should be safe to unmount the SD card partition(s) and eject the SD card. You
can unmount these partitions either from the GUI interface of your Linux laptop, or
you can manually unmount them from the terminal by running these commands:
$ cd ~
$ su -c 'umount /mnt/raspi-boot'
$ su -c 'umount /mnt/raspi-root'
Make sure to change into a directory that is not in either of the mounted partitions
before attempting to run the umount command, or that command will not succeed.
Next, put your SD card into your Raspberry Pi and plug it in. You should see it boot
into the Linux kernel successfully. Once you've logged in, you can now run:
$ uname -a
Linux myrpi 3.6.11+ #24 PREEMPT Sun Aug 19 21:28:36 BST 2013 armv6l GNU/
Linux
This will print out a list of system information, but the most important one is the ver-
sion of the running Linux kernel. It should match the version of the modules directory
(or directories) that you just copied over. You can also confirm that the build date
printed out for the running kernel matches the date that you built your new kernel.
Update to the Latest Prebuilt Kernel
HACK 23
Want the latest Linux kernel features for your Raspberry Pi? Of course
you do, and there is a way to get them without having to build it from
source.
The nice folks at the Raspberry Pi Foundation are regularly hard at work adding new
features to their Linux kernel source tree. They also go one step beyond and regularly
update a copy of a prebuilt Linux kernel image. This kernel is configured with a set of
options and modules intended specifically for the Raspberry Pi. Using this kernel
means that you can be sure that all of the hardware built into the Raspberry Pi will be
properly enabled, along with any Raspberry-Pi-specific functionality.
