I need to build a modified kernel for friendlycore xenial 4.14 but cannot manage to make one that will boot correctly. I have downloaded the source from https://github.com/friendlyarm/linux but it seems to be very old (builds as 4.10 at best) and does not include the .config file.

If I use the config from /proc/config.gz of a running friendlycore xenial 4.14 system, this does not include all of the options and so still needs configuration. Building of that completes, but the zImage when booted seems not to have the mmc configured - the dmesg says:

[ 2.032864] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.mmc: base:0xf0993000 irq:26
[ 2.044210] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.mmc: smc 0 err, cmd 8, RTO !!
[ 2.053862] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.mmc: smc 0 err, cmd 55, RTO !!
[ 2.060361] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.mmc: smc 0 err, cmd 55, RTO !!
[ 2.066837] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.mmc: smc 0 err, cmd 55, RTO !!
[ 2.073309] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.mmc: smc 0 err, cmd 55, RTO !!
[ 2.077839] sunxi-mmc 1c11000.mmc: base:0xf099b000 irq:28
...
Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done.
Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ... done.
Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-top ... done.
Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... done.
Begin: Waiting for root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-block ... done.
done.
Gave up waiting for root file system device. Common problems:
- Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
- Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
- Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
ALERT! /dev/mmcblk0p2 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
Rebooting automatically due to panic= boot argument

Has anyone managed to build a modified kernel for this system??

Cheers

Jeremy