Yep, these days you can enjoy a good Linux mainline support for RIoTBoard, thanks to the hard work of lots of people. Here are my notes on how to build the latest Linux kernel for this cool board:

mkdir ~/riotboard
wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/linux-3.17.tar.xz
tar xf linux-3.17.tar.xz
cd linux-3.17
make distclean
make imx_v6_v7_defconfig
make LOADADDR=0x10008000 uImage -j4
cp -v arch/arm/boot/uImage arch/arm/boot/dts/imx6dl-riotboard.dtb ~/riotboard/
make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=~/riotboard

Now the ~/riotboard directory contains the freshly compiled kernel, device tree blob and drivers, so you can copy them to your embedded target.

PS: I've manually added some useful reader comments here:

MCO April 8, 2015 at 4:02 PM

what is the LOADADDR argument for in the make command?

picmaster April 8, 2015 at 8:32 PM

Hi MCO. LOADADDR is 0x10008000.

MCO April 8, 2015 at 9:21 PM

What is the effect of this argument? is the loadaddr where the bootloader shall expect the kernel? Sorry for the question I am new to building kernels...

picmaster April 9, 2015 at 12:04 AM

Well, there are several effects when you pass the LOADADDR argument: 1. The kernel build doesn't fail. 2. The kernel bootstraping and relocation code are linked to run on this physical address. 3. The uImage is generated with this option, this informing the bootloader where to load and execute the kernel during boot.