Kernel upgrade problem.

[Stephen]

Right now it also bugs me that xconfig won't start (it never did since day one actually and that is why I have been using menuconfig). It complains about "unable to find QT installation... bla..bla..bla" I tried to adjust the QTDIR to /etc/lib/qt3 but didn't work.

Please disregard the above,
After reinstaling QT the xconfig seems to work ok now.

Good to hear you got it going you should change the message of the day file ( /etc/motd ) to the proper settings to avoid anymore confusion what it should look like for the format that was being used incorrectly.

Welcome to $HOSTNAME (Kernel $(uname -r))

And you can undo the changes in your XF86Config-4 file and go back to using the "nv" driver until you compile your nvidia driver so you can login graphically also if you want to get rid of that nvidia logo when you get it going put this underneath the driver line.

Driver      "nvidia"
Option      "NoLogo" "on"

Note: Now that I look at the motd line in the preview it looks like there is a space between the $ and the ( there is none.

[massai]

I did "uname -a" after the login prompt and true enough it is indeed kernel 2.6.1.
AWESOME !! (cheers...turned up the music... jumped up and down in joy and then opened a can beer and kicked back for five minutes...)

Man, you are on the ball ! Thank for hanging around with this newbie (that's me) for as long as you did !

Now... after all the excitment toned down, I am finding out that there is no network conection under the new kernel (2.6.1). (Shoot, I had a nagging feeling that something would spoil the fan...and true enough here it goes). It looks like another Kernel recompile is coming and I dread it.

The original knoppix kernel .config file had all networking options enabled (and the kitchen sink). I wish there was a way to pin it down to my hardware instead of having to resort to such a "shotgun" approach.

I am on a Lynk-sys 10-100 ethernet card, connected to a Lynk-sys router, connected to a Lynksys cable modem.

Off I go to compare the .config files again....


P.S. I notice that your .config file is much more compact than mine (That is probably because I chickened out and didn't dare trim as much fat as you did)

[Stephen]

I did "uname -a" after the login prompt and true enough it is indeed kernel 2.6.1.
AWESOME !! (cheers...turned up the music... jumped up and down in joy and then opened a can beer and kicked back for five minutes...)

Man, you are on the ball ! Thank for hanging around with this newbie (that's me) for as long as you did !

Now... after all the excitment toned down, I am finding out that there is no network conection under the new kernel (2.6.1). (Shoot, I had a nagging feeling that something would spoil the fan...and true enough here it goes). It looks like another Kernel recompile is coming and I dread it.

The original knoppix kernel .config file had all networking options enabled (and the kitchen sink). I wish there was a way to pin it down to my hardware instead of having to resort to such a "shotgun" approach.

I am on a Lynk-sys 10-100 ethernet card, connected to a Lynk-sys router, connected to a Lynksys cable modem.

Off I go to compare the .config files again....


P.S. I notice that your .config file is much more compact than mine (That is probably because I chickened out and didn't dare trim as much fat as you did)

If you are getting the IP by DHCP (where the problem usually happens) you may want to hold off on the recompile and try either noapic or acpi=off when you boot at the lilo screen. You would just start typing in the name that is displayed at the lilo screen and the boot option to pass in your case Kernel(2.6.1) noapic then enter key to boot if either of them work then you would add the parameter to the append= line in the lilo.conf to have it used every time on boot. To start to track down what you need in the kernel use your favorite seach engine to check on your componets in the system with a linux on the end of the search and the hardware how-to at the Linux Documentation Project is always good to check as well.

[massai]

during boot there is a lot of text that flies by.

Is that text saved anywhere for later inspection ?

I would like to compare the boot processes between the two kernels.

.....
Also, the /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/config.in file is missing from both kernels ? Is this normal ?


......
Neither noapic or acpi=off worked

......
After checking the Lynksys website it looks like my ethernet card requires "Tulip" and that is the one thing I did *not* include in my kernel config.
Recompiling the kernel again (I guess I can use the practice)

.....
SUCCESS !!
After enabling the tulip networking support and recompiling the kernel I finaly have online access.


......
SUCCESS !!
The nvidia driver is up and running (and better than before) thanks to kano's script.
I opened up the script and noticed that there is a provision for kernel 2.6. Veeeerry nice (the script is up to date)

THANK YOU Stephen for *all* your help.
Your contribution/effort is appriciated.

[Stephen]

during boot there is a lot of text that flies by.

Is that text saved anywhere for later inspection ?

I would like to compare the boot processes between the two kernels.

.....
Also, the /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/config.in file is missing from both kernels ? Is this normal ?


......
Neither noapic or acpi=off worked

......
After checking the Lynksys website it looks like my ethernet card requires "Tulip" and that is the one thing I did *not* include in my kernel config.
Recompiling the kernel again (I guess I can use the practice)

.....
SUCCESS !!
After enabling the tulip networking support and recompiling the kernel I finaly have online access.


......
SUCCESS !!
The nvidia driver is up and running (and better than before) thanks to kano's script.
I opened up the script and noticed that there is a provision for kernel 2.6. Veeeerry nice (the script is up to date)

THANK YOU Stephen for *all* your help.
Your contribution/effort is appriciated.

Your welcome, the messages can be found by using dmesg | less in a console window for the current boot or in the file /var/log/messages for the boots since the last log rotation. Your right about the config.in being missing in 2.6 however it is there in my old 2.4.24 it looks like it has been changed in 2.6.? Kconfig, you do not have the source installed for the Knoppix kernel (or do you) so you can not find the old one.

>$ locate config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/alpha/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/arm/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/cris/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/i386/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/ia64/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/m68k/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/mips/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/mips64/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/parisc/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/ppc/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/ppc64/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/s390/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/s390x/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/sh/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/sh64/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/sparc/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/sparc64/config.in
/usr/src/linux-2.4.24/arch/x86_64/config.in
/usr/src/modules/alsa-drivers/toplevel.config.in

[massai]

Thanks, I tried dmesg... and discovered...

what it looks like there is a hick-up: There is an obsolete "update daemon" running and causes an error message: "process 'update' used the obsolete bdflush system call, Fix your initscripts"

So, I dug deeper, and found out that in 2.6 the old "update daemon" is replaced by a new thread "pdflush" (instead of bdflush) .

What I have to do is somehow remove the command that invokes bdflush somewhere in the boot scripts. The problem is that I don't know how to do this just yet.

[arkaine23]

Should be a file in /etc/init.d... perhaps by the name of of update or updated?

[massai]

I don't think "update" is a file, plus I can't find it under /etc/init.d

The curious thing is why did it tell me to fix the initscripts? Does it mean I have to reinstall initscripts ?

It looks like initscripts depents on "mount" and "mount" cannot be updated because it conflicts with "mount-aes".

I suspect mount-aes is a knoppix custom thing ?

Both mount and mount-aes are discribing the same functions (as seen in their descriptions in Kpacage)

........
Couldn't find "mount-aes" in the debian package lists.
I will go ahead and replace it with "mount" testing (ver 2.12-3)
(I will overide the "skull and bones" warning and see what hapens)

.......
"Mount" has now been installed (no carnage occured dispite the spooky warning)
However.... initscripts still does not get fixed:

root@ThisKnoppixBox:/# apt-get install initscripts
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  initscripts
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 20 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/16.6kB of archives.
After unpacking 176kB of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 134106 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking initscripts (from .../initscripts_2.85-9_all.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/initscripts_2.85-9_all.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite `/etc/init.d/halt', which is also in package sysvinit
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/initscripts_2.85-9_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[Stephen]

You may want to check this thread here it m_yates describes how to get rid of the knoppix variants and get real the Debian files.

[massai]

Yup, it worked !
Hey Steff what would I do without your help ! (you didn't have to make extremely detailed instructions for me, but just pointing me to the right direction has helped imensely. Thanks again)

I followed the instructions of "m_yates" and I was able to reinstall initscripts:

OK, I tried it again on a different computer and I wrote the order of things wrong:

download sysvinit<something>.deb package.

dpkg -x sysvinit<something>.deb /tmp

apt-get install mount

"Yes, do as I say!"

apt-get install installscripts

That brings an error, override with:

dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/initscripts<something>.deb

cp /tmp/usr/share/sysvinit/update-rc.d /usr/sbin

apt-get install sysv-rc

dpkg -i sysvinit<something>.deb

Everything works using the standard sysvinit with initscripts. I replaced bootmisc.sh with the standard version as well and everything works fine.

Erata: where he said: apt-get install installscripts
he ment: apt-get install initscripts

I had a problem doing "apt-get install sysv-rc"
so I forced it with "dpkg -i --force-overwrite ........"

Rebooted and did "dmesg" and the error message ("process 'update' used the obsolete bdflush system call, Fix your initscripts" ) is not longer there ! Woohooo !

..........
In retrospect, it was imperative that I completed this step after the kernel upgrade because the system call to the obsolete bdflush had caused several of the kernel modules to remain unloaded and some devices were left undetected.

Now (after inspecting the boot messages) the boot process seems to flow much more smoothly.

...........
This whole upgrade process is a bitch (forgive the expression). If I wanted Debian, I should have gotten Debian in the first place and be done with it. (However, the learning experience from this silly knoppix-to-debian exercise is the only good asset and it compensates for the effort.... or at least I hope so...)