2.4.3 compiled, but hangs right away

[kneebiters]

I was able to make it through compiling the 2.4.3 kernel, with a lot of help from articles, etc. on this forum. However, my system now hangs as soon as it says "OK, loading kernel". I can't even begin to figure out how to diagnose this problem. I am able to boot to my old (2.2.17) kernel.

Can anyone suggest where I should go from here? I am an honest to goodness "newbie", so I would respectfully ask for newbie-speak in your replies. For example, it took me about 30 minutes of searching to figure our that DSTRO referred to a Linux Distribution.

Thanks,

Sam

[bdl]

Could you post your compile / setup / reboot procedure? Perhaps there was a missed step...

[sans-hubris]

Did you run lilo at the command line?

[kneebiters]

To compile, I followed the procedure documented in this article by Brain Jones:
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/compiling/kernel2.4upgrade.html

I pretty much followed his routine verbatim. Although he was usine RedHat and I am using Mandrake, everything that I have read says that they are nearly identical.

Below are the areas where I deviated from his steps:

- step 5: I installed the GCC version that came with Mandrake. It was at least the version recommended in the CHANGES document, so it seemed okay.
- step 7: didn't do this step. The version that came with Mandrake 7.2 was okay, per the CHANGES doc.
- step 9: I actaully did follw the steps here, but like the author, I couldn't get ksymoops to load.

All else was according to plan.

After compiling, I copied the new kernel and System.map files to the /boot directory. In both cases, there were symbolic links pointing to the old kernel and System.map files. I removed both symbolic links (rm command), and replaced them with symbolic links to my new kernel and System.map files. This solved my LILO issue right off, as lilo.conf alread had a label called "linux" pointing to the symbolic link.

This is a lot of hell to go through in the off chance that I will be able to get my USB-hooked Cable Modem to run.

Help? Please?

[kneebiters]

Oh, and as for reboot -- well, I just rebooted. If there was something special that I should have done there, then I did miss it.

[kneebiters]

One additional piece to the puzzle, plus one additional question.

First, looking over my notes, I noticed that when I checked the version of REISERFSCK, the syetem did not return any result. The instructions suggested a command line statement piped through GREP to return the version. However, I don't see any version information in the output, so of course GREP returned nothing. Evidently, I simply moved on.

Looking now at the Package Manager in KDE, I noticed that the version is 2.2.17, which is less that what is required in CHANGES. Could that be (part of) my problem? How do I upgrade?

Now to the new question. I noticed that I have a CORE dump in my /root directory, assumedly from the failed 2.4.3 boot attempt. Is this important to keep? To read? Can it be read? Is that what KSYMOOPS does?

Man, you've really got to have a lot of willpower and caffeine to make this happen. :confused:

[Infested Flar]

this is carelessness maybe.. ive encountered it too.. as u can see.. 2.4.* kernels are defaulted to PIII.. aight? this may help.. i maybe wrong then..

if uv changed it to ur systems' setting then, that would be another problem ...
-flar-

[kneebiters]

Flar,

I'm sorry to say that I don't follow you. By PIII, do you mean Pentium III. Did you spot something that I missed?

Thanks,

Sam

[MkIII_Supra]

Bro! There is your problem! Your using Mandrake and trying to upgrade the kernel... guess what, I hat the exact seam problem your now having, I tried 12 times to get the 2.2.17-21mdk kernel from the Mandrake 7.2 distro to upgrade to the 2.4.2-0.1 kernel and ended up with the same results....

My suggestion to you, if your game, is dump Mandrake and go with Red-Hat Wolverine then use the up2date feature to take the 2.4.1-0.1 kernel and upgrade to the 2.4.2 series. That is if you want the relative ease of use and to stick with a system layout that you are familiar with.

Mandrake is a piece of crap when it comes to upgrades, look at the number of posts from people having issues with it and you will see that I am right. I used Mandrake for 2 years, I cut my teeth on it.

My Wolverine box is running fast and stable, I had a few core files at first but after about a week of solid uptime the core dumps stopped and I am happy.

Bottom line is I have compiled a few kernels and am familiar with the process. Your best bet is to bail in `Drake. Until they get thier **** together with distro stability and ability to upgrade.....

[kneebiters]

I might just do that (meaning switch to RH), but I have too much time invested in this project to just give up. If anyone has any ideas as to how I can squeeze out some success using Mandrake, I'm still game.

[Ig0r]

What Flar means is that, by default, the kernel is optimized for p3 processors. If you don't have a p3 (or a cpu that has p3 extentions) then you won't be able to run the object code.

[bdg1983]

I'm certainly not an expert on compiling kernels although I have seem mention of 'KSYMOOPS' posted here the last few days. A search may help.

And this is a quote from another user that has a non-Intel processor.

At boot, it's trying to disable the cruddy P3 CPUID by default (DAMN Intel!), and since my Thunderbird processor doesn't have one, it's crashing. When I installed Redhat, where it asks for extra parameters to pass to the kernel, I just had to add x86_serial_nr=1 and it worked like a charm. If it's already installed, i would have typed linux x86_serial_nr=1 at the boot prompt to fix it.

[kneebiters]

Okay, maybe we're on to something here. I am running on an AMD K6 processor with 128 Mb RAM. Does anyone know how to correctly pass this information to the kernel? :rolleyes:

[LiNuts]

If you care to, you can check my NHF for upgrading Mandrake 2.2.17-21mdk to 2.4.0. It has worked O.K. for quite a few other newbies. :D
Cheers
LiNuts

[kneebiters]

Linuts -- I have your NHF printed out on my desk. I did refer to it often.

Thanks,

Sam

[kneebiters]

Hats off to Flar and lg0r! I re-ran make xconfig, went into the processor section, and changed the processor type from PIII to AMD K6. I then followed through all of the steps that followed, and bingo!

One final question on this topic. Right after LILO loads the new Linux (i.e., with the new kernel), I see the kernel 2.4.3 message go by quickly. However, when I run the Package Manager utility and check the version of the kernel, it still says 2.2.17. How can I verify the version of the kernel under which I am running?

Many thanks to all who have provided support on this thread.

To other newbies reading this thread, both Linuts' and Brain Jones articles on building the kernel are a great help. Just be careful with xconfig! :cool:

[rapjo]

If you want to see the kernel version number along with some other useful and related statistics, type uname -a at the command line. To see all those startup messages, type dmesg | less, and to exit that program just press q