diff --git a/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/generic.nix b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/generic.nix
index a2f80505cd95d..67cf40a21287c 100644
--- a/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/generic.nix
+++ b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/generic.nix
@@ -1,3 +1,12 @@
+let
+  # Map of images representations to legacy Makefile targets.
+  defaultMapImageToTargets = {
+    "uImage" = "uinstall";
+    "zImage" = "zinstall";
+    "Image.gz" = "zinstall";
+    "vmlinux" = "install";
+  };
+in
 { buildPackages
 , callPackage
 , perl
@@ -64,6 +73,11 @@
 # easy overrides to stdenv.hostPlatform.linux-kernel members
 , autoModules ? stdenv.hostPlatform.linux-kernel.autoModules
 , preferBuiltin ? stdenv.hostPlatform.linux-kernel.preferBuiltin or false
+, kernelTarget ? null
+# FIXME: this should go whenever we can rely on KBUILD_IMAGE to install
+# our kernel targets, MIPS is probably the only recent kernel in-tree
+# which does not support that yet.
+, installTargets ? [ ]
 , kernelArch ? stdenv.hostPlatform.linuxArch
 , kernelTests ? []
 , nixosTests
diff --git a/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/manual-config.nix b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/manual-config.nix
index baf0231f13e16..25fc4ee6f48a3 100644
--- a/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/manual-config.nix
+++ b/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel/manual-config.nix
@@ -31,6 +31,16 @@ in lib.makeOverridable ({
   src,
   # a list of { name=..., patch=..., extraConfig=...} patches
   kernelPatches ? [],
+  # KBUILD_IMAGE
+  kernelTarget ? null,
+  # a list of install targets, e.g. :
+  # - uinstall for uImage, U-Boot wrapped image
+  # - zinstall for zImage, self-extracting images
+  # - install, the generic binary image
+  # those targets are legacy and are present
+  # only for compatibility with old kernels or MIPS for now.
+  # prefer KBUILD_IMAGE instead.
+  installTargets ? [],
   # The kernel .config file
   configfile,
   # Manually specified nixexpr representing the config
@@ -267,12 +277,7 @@ let
       '';
 
       # Some image types need special install targets (e.g. uImage is installed with make uinstall)
-      installTargets = [
-        (kernelConf.installTarget or (
-          /**/ if kernelConf.target == "uImage" then "uinstall"
-          else if kernelConf.target == "zImage" || kernelConf.target == "Image.gz" then "zinstall"
-          else "install"))
-      ];
+      installTargets = if installTargets == [ ] then [ "install" ] else installTargets;
 
       postInstall = optionalString isModular ''
         mkdir -p $dev