Well, I have tried to build a 2.4.17-x kernel for MY mandrake 8.1 system, but it doesn't seem to get the network running, and I haven't had time to pursue it lately.
But here is what I've learned so far: The .config file is in /usr/src/linux. I downloaded the pure kernel tarball, not RPMs, because I wanted an UNMODIFIED kernel to build Real Time Linux on, and Red Hat's (and thus Mandrake's) kernel is heavily patched. I copied this .config file to my new kernel source directory, and used it as a basis for make xconfig. However, there were some mismatches that I haven't had time to sort out yet. But, if you're building the same version, you should be better off than me. When building a new kernel, DO NOT use /usr/src/linux. Make a separate directory tree to keep everything separate from your original (working) kernel. the kernel source documentation recommends this. I assumed that when you recompile a kernel, you also need to rebuild the modules, because of pointers and stuff. I don't know how true this is, but I always did it as a matter of course. You might also want to think about upgrading to 2.4.8-34.1. There have been some security fixes and so forth. Rich Cloutier President, C*O SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES www.sysupport.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Hewitt USG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 2:06 PM Subject: Couple of dumb kernel build questions (Mandrake 8.1) > Well after recently having very good success installing Mandrake 8.1 under > VmWare, I upgraded the hard drive in my laptop and since it was an empty disk I > decided to take a shot at installing Mandrake 8.1. Imagine my surprise when > Mandrake smoothly and happily found pretty much all the hardware and even > managed to get X configured on the first attempt! To make things even more > amazing, Mandrake noticed the LinkSys wireless PCMCIA card I had placed in the > system and brought it up! Really impressive. > > But now to the problems that I've had all along with this laptop. It uses ACPI > power management hardware. I'd really like to make full use of the power > management but building a new kernel has been a bit of a pain. > > First, Mandrake as far as I can tell doesn't ship the kernel sources on any > of the CDs. I was easily able to copy them down from rpmfind but I was running > around in circles for a while figuring out exactly which rpms were needed. The > kernel sources rpm depends on a version ncurses. I downloaded that and then > the kernel sources installed ok. Now it gets more interesting. The kernel that > Mandrake put on my laptop is almost 100% in terms of it's recognizing and using > the system hardware. But the kernel sources don't have the specific kernel > configuration that was used to build the kernel on the distro. I did notice > that there are a bunch of .config files saved in a directory on the system with > names like "mumble-kernel-enterprsed.config" and so on. It seems possible that > Mandrake actually has the configuration file somewhere on the system but I'm > not sure which one, if any, is the correct one. > > At any rate, I took a flyer on configuring the kernel using 'make xconfig'. I > guessed at what most of the likely options would be making as many modular as > possible. The kernel built fine. I copied it to /boot and then modified > lilo.conf to add the new kernel so that I could test it. > > On the reboot I selected my new kernel and at the point where it would fsck the > disk, it said "Can't fsck, hard drive hda1 already mounted". I did notice that > there was a kernel configuration option "automatically mount disks" and I'm > suspicious that I should have said 'no' rather than 'yes' to that option. > > Oddly enough, if I ignored the warnings and kept pushing the system to continue > to boot it made it all the way up and X started ok. I did see lots of "undefined > symbol" messages and the PCMCIA support didn't start. Since I didn't build the > modules in a separate step, I'm guessing that I need to build/re-build the > modules. > > That brings up another question. The Mandrake installed kernel is clearly using > modules that are already on the system. If I rebuild the modules, will that mess > up the kernel that mostly runs correctly? If the kernel that was installed and > the kernel sources are the same rev (2.4.8-26), why do I need to rebuild > modules? Is there an easy way for the two sets of modules to co-exist if I need > to have two sets to support two different kernels? > > Any takers? > > -Alex > > P.S. I'm so close to having my laptop work properly that I'm really hoping > to be able to ditch Windows on this rig! ;^) > > Wirth's Law: Software gets slower faster than Hardware gets faster! > > "On the side of the software box, in the 'System Requirements' section, it > said 'Requires Windows 95 or better'. So I installed Linux." - Anonymous > > Want to know what it looked like 1, 10, 100, 1000, 1,000,000 > years ago? Just look up on a clear night! > > > ***************************************************************** > To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. > ***************************************************************** > ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
