Steps to Apply Patches to Kernel

Here I am going to share the steps to apply patches to kernel. interesting is it.

Step 1: Clonning
Clone the latest Linux kernel from kernel.org, I prefer source from Linus
# git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git

Step 2: Branching
After cloning the linux kernel, It is better to create a new branch
# git branch
Switch to new branch
# git checkout

Step 3: Apply Changes
Make some changes and Check the difference
# git diff

Step 4: Commit
Commit the Changes
# git commit -a

A good commit message look like below things
———————————————————————
Header line: explain commit in one line

Body of commit message in few lines of text, explaining things
in more detail, like background about the issue being fixed, etc.
The Body of the message should not exceed 70 lines.

Reported-by:
Signed-off-by: Your Name <youremail@yourhost.com>

example:
Subject:[PATCH] Makefile: Change text to contain text

As a part of example, text field in Makefile is changed to text.
This is just an example, I think you can explain better than me.

Signed-off-by: Nobel Sharanyan J <nobelsharanyan86@gmail.com>
———————————————————————

Step 5: Generate Patch
Create the Patch
# git format-patch master..
or you can use something like
# git format-patch –stdout origin/master

Step 6: Cross check the patch before sending
Check whether patch is error free and ok to submit
# ./scripts/checkpatch.pl .patch

Step 7: whom to mail
# ./scripts/get_maintainer.pl .patch
the above command will list down the maintainers email id.

Step 8: How to mail,
To send mail you can use either mutt or git
if your are using git sendmail follow this,
# git config –global sendemail.smtpuser
# git config –global sendemail.smtpserver smtp.googlemail.com
# git config –global sendemail.smtpencryption tls
# git config –global sendemail.smtpserverport 587
# git config –global sendemail.smtppass

to cross check whether config is written correctly check “~/.gitconfig”

Step 9: Test mail.
Try a test mail not to maintainer, no need to distrub them
# git send-email –to <name>@gmail.com –cc <name>@gmail.com .patch

check the mail. hurray!! ready to send patch to linux.

view git log using below command,
git log
git log –oneline
There are lot of better comments, better google it or refer some books.

Now you follow the same process to apply patches to kernel, instead of to add maintainer in to list