Suse 9.0 and 2.6 Kernel

[sigepcaltheta]

I have Suse 9.0 and I have compiled the 2.6 Kernel. However, I can't figure out how to get Suse to recognize and use the new kernel. I have followed 2 online tutorials without any success. Any help on how to get this working would be nice.

[somebitch]

did you compile it from the source or with an rpm?

[jmhiggins]

I'm having similiar issues with 2.6 I have tried twice and each time SuSE wont load or even give me a command prompt and I have to reinstall the Distro over again.

[somebitch]

i am having problems too. everything compiled perfectly and when i get to mkinitrd, it says no module for ieee1394 and it is wrong b/c i didnt compile it as a module. besides the point i used the old config and only changed my sound configuration & that worked fine. so now i cant make the init ramdisk and i cant boot the new kernel. luckily i always leave the old kernels bootable so when i go to boot it says it cant boot & i boot 2.4.23 instead.

as for u guys problems i am sure if you compile from the source you shouldnt have any problems. after you compile it you have to find the bzImage and copy it to your /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.0 and copy the new System.map to /boot/ then edit the lilo.conf and last mkinitrd...

also, you seem to need module-init-tools, i got this package thinking it would fix my issues with the ieee module thing and no luck. also, you cant use the rpm for the module-init-tools, you should compile it from source, i had some dep problems.

[jmhiggins]

I've done all that. Everything compiles ok I run the make menuconfig and all of that and make modules and stuff. I even did the make oldconfig too or whatever. I get the bzimage and all of that no prob. But when I reboot. It isnt happy. I use grub for a boot loader and I am pretty sure I edited it correctly. Bascially it just reboots and dies with no interface at all and I'm hosed.

[sigepcaltheta]

I compiled it with source and I moved both the System map and the bzImage to the boot directory. As for the final two things "then edit the lilo.conf and last mkinitrd... "

Im not sure what you mean exactly by last mkinitrd?

I'm using grub instead of lilo. I think I edited my grub conf file correctly.

[somebitch]

i cant mkinitrd. i get some kind of error about device-mapper.. i dont know, you cant boot the kernel without it so i just use 2.4.23. hopefully there is a fix soon.

[ensane]

I've sucessfully compiled a standard SUSE 9.0 kernel to be 2.6.10

The bootsplash actually won't work the same way anymore, but all you need to do is set it on text instead of image.

Here are my notes (even if you already know some of this):

1. Download module-init-tools for the kernel you want to configure.
in the untared directory...

./configure
./make
./make install

2. Unpack kernel to /usr/src

3. Packages needed: make, gcc, and QT Development

4. commands to configure and compile kernel inside of directory
/usr/src/linux-2.6.10

make xconfig (be sure to include all hardware needed in
kernel config file)
make bzImage
make modules
make modules-install

5. copy bzImage and System.map to /boot

(from inside of kernel directory)

cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage-2.6.10
cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.10

6. set up mkinitrd (do it this way to prevent overwriting old initrd image file)

mkinitrd -k bzImage-2.6.10 -i initrd.img-2.6.10


7. Edit grub file (here is an example of mine)

title Linux 2.6.10
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/bzImage-2.6.10 root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x317 splash=verbose desktop hdc=ide-scsi hdclun=0 showopts
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.10

setting splash to verbose is needed unless you attempt to get bootsplash working as explained here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/answers.php?action=viewarticle&artid=139

hope this helps! feel free to ask any questions!

[ensane]

Originally posted by jmhiggins
I'm having similiar issues with 2.6 I have tried twice and each time SuSE wont load or even give me a command prompt and I have to reinstall the Distro over again.

Next time follow my instructions below, and inside of grub copy your boot options inside of menu.1st instead of replacing, and then edit the copied part for the new kernel. This will allow you to choose the old kernel if the new kernel fails... for example

title Linux
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x317 splash=silent desktop hdc=ide-scsi hdclun=0 showopts
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd

title Linux 2.6.10
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/bzImage-2.6.10 root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x317 splash=verbose desktop hdc=ide-scsi hdclun=0 showopts
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.10

having this will allow me to boot back to the old kernel, which would be called plain Linux in grub upon boot, and the new kernel would be called Linux 2.6.10

Hope this helps!

[welmers]

Then why not upgrade to suse 9.1? That has a 'native' SuSE 2.6 kernel.

Note that Suse maintain their own kernels (patched with extra features that work together with the userland) and I think is more usefull to use these, than spending time in hacking thinks to get it work. With vanilla kernels some things won't work anymore and become inconsistent. For example, I tried vanilla 2.6.10 and subfs (used for removable media) does not work with that kernel.

[ensane]

Originally posted by welmers
Then why not upgrade to suse 9.1? That has a 'native' SuSE 2.6 kernel.

Note that Suse maintain their own kernels (patched with extra features that work together with the userland) and I think is more usefull to use these, than spending time in hacking thinks to get it work. With vanilla kernels some things won't work anymore and become inconsistent. For example, I tried vanilla 2.6.10 and subfs (used for removable media) does not work with that kernel.

I agree, that was my final conclusion after getting all these issues getting all my hardware to work correctly. Thats why I tried the above steps on my test computer, before I was going to try it on my main computer. But my conclusion was that SUSE is so customized that it is best to just use their upgrades.

But it is still fun to try! Makes for an exciting and frustrating afternoon!

[jmhiggins]

Yeah I also just upgraded to 9.1 and now 9.2

[ensane]

Is there actually a link on the web somewhere to download the upgrade to 9.2 pro? I don't really want to go and spend another 50 bux for an upgrade, or even get a copied 5 disc set...

[frimann]

hope this helps!

http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/downloads/suse_linux/

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/current/README.FTP