My conf: Debian 8 (Jessie) with Backports, 4 cores, 4Gb RAM.
Target: OrangePi One H3 (AllWinner) armhf, .deb only for a specific board
Install crossbuild packages for the target architecture.
dpkg --add-architecture armhf apt-get update apt-get install crossbuild-essential-armhf apt-get install cross-gcc-dev gcc-arm-none-aebi binutils-arm-linux-gnueabihf
Install kernel sources
apt-get install linux-source-X.X
Move to your working dir & copy kernel sources.
cd ~ cp /usr/src/linux.source-X.X.tar.xz .
Expand kernel sources
tar xavf linux-source-X.X.tar.xz
Move to sources dir
cd linux-source-X.X
If you have patches to apply then copy them into linux-source-X.X folder and then for each patch do:
patch -p1 < MYPATCH
Into arch/arm/ there are all supported boards, choose your board (mine is OrangePi One and it's a sunxi board)
Prepare for configuration, start with a minimum configurations
ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi- make sunxi_defconfig
Now, we probably need more modules because that defconfig is a very minimal configuration
ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi- make menuconfig
Choose your modules.
* In General Setup -> Stack Protector buffer overflow detection set it to None (or build will fail).
Build!
ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi- DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=nocheck make deb-pkg LOCALVERSION=-YOUR_TARGET_ARCH KDEB_PKGVERSION=$(make kernelversion) -j#num_of_cores
Don't forget to set the target LOCAL_VERSION=-YOUR_TARGET_ARCH (ie: -arm-antani-lpae ), otherwise dpkg will not install the kernel. This is what i did for my OrangePi One:
ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi- DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=nocheck make deb-pkg LOCALVERSION=-armmp-lpae KDEB_PKGVERSION=$(make kernelversion) -j4
Wait until build process completes; ready to use .debs are in the upper level folder.