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Thread: Kernel upgrade problem.

  1. #1
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    Kernel upgrade problem.

    Hello everyone,

    The problem is about attempting to upgrade the kernel from 2.4.42 to 2.6.1.
    I followed the steps as illustrated here (full source method)
    http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/lnag_kernel_upgrade.html

    I am must have messed something during the configuration step, because when I try to reboot to the new kernel the process goes through LILO just fine but then it hungs immidiately after that; where it is supposed to be doing "check BIOS data" (?).

    I booted with the old kernel and recompiled one more time using the old kernels "config" file, but the same thing happens.

    Has anyone seen this before? How should I go about troubleshooting?

    Thanks

  2. #2
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    Re: Kernel upgrade problem.

    I have the same problems
    But one thing is that the kernel 2.6. does not support vesa vga mode, but this is chosen by lilo vga=...
    You can disable it by vga=0 in lilo.conf
    By this way i got the 2.4.22-K7 kernel from debian run. but i was not able to run 2.6.0 at all.

    See Kernel 2.6.0 and links in this Forum or some postings in the HD-install-forum on this topic.

    If you get the answer let me know too.

    garak
    s[/quote]

  3. #3
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    Re: Kernel upgrade problem.

    Quote Originally Posted by massai
    Hello everyone,

    The problem is about attempting to upgrade the kernel from 2.4.42 to 2.6.1.
    I followed the steps as illustrated here (full source method)
    http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/lnag_kernel_upgrade.html

    I am must have messed something during the configuration step, because when I try to reboot to the new kernel the process goes through LILO just fine but then it hungs immidiately after that; where it is supposed to be doing "check BIOS data" (?).

    I booted with the old kernel and recompiled one more time using the old kernels "config" file, but the same thing happens.

    Has anyone seen this before? How should I go about troubleshooting?

    Thanks
    Firstly have you installled the module-init-tools program it is needed to boot a 2.6 kernel and you need a line like this in your /etc/fstab.
    Code:
    ## Needed for kernel 2.6
    none           /sys            sysfs   defaults                0       0
    If you want to check a working config for a 2.6 kernel then you can find my old one I used for test9 here. You will have to make changes for your setup it has support for ext2, ext3 and reisferfs support built in so there is no need for an initrd if you use any of these file systems for your / and if you want the framebuffer when you boot then do not make any change to the console framebuffer devices or for the built in fonts.

  4. #4
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    Stephen, thank you for offering a helping hand.

    I took you suggestions to heart and went back did the menuconfig (one more time) line by line.
    My machine is a little different than yours (so I changed appropriately)

    In regards to "module-init-tools" your hint forced me to revamp my sources.list file (previously it was giving me a trackload of 404 errors; so now it all cleaned-up and a new "update and upgrade" has been made). So the "module-init-tools" have been re-installed.

    Your suggested line was added to the /etc/fstab.

    Someone suggested that I should "make install" after the "Make bzImage". So I did that too (this also took care of the vmlinuz, System.map links automatically).

    Then I rebooted....
    but...
    this time it passed the BIOS data check, but it still froze with the black screen of death.

    Then I dug deaper and found out that the new lilo stanza (which I made previously) contained the "/boot/initrd.gz" line (as it was copied from the original knoppix stanza).

    I do not know how to make a new initrd.2.6.1(??) thingy. On the other hand it may not be needed (I do have ext2 ext3 enabled via menuconifig)
    Anyway, someone suggested to use mkinitrd but that wasn't working for me.
    Someone else suggested that debian doesn't have mkinitrd and we should use the following steps within /usr/src/linux-2.6.1

    *****
    make-kpkg clean
    make-kpkg --revision 5:myhost.1.0 kernel_image
    dpkg -i ../kernel-image*.deb
    *****

    The above three steps compiled fine (it did a lot of automatic stuff including make modules, make modules_install, took care of links, made a boot disc, and some other stuff that I didn't know before.

    I opened lilo.conf and hashed out the initrd.gz line.

    rebooted.

    This time it seemed to boot normaly (harrraay, but only for a minute).
    It goes through the entire boot process (I see all the text scrolling etc..etc) but the window manager never loads. No Nvidia splash screens... nothing.
    Instead, I am stuck in text mode.
    Now, when I login it greats me with: "Welcome massai Linux kernel 2.4.22-xfs" !!

    All this time I thought it was booting into 2.6.1 ?

    Something is still broken. No idea what it is though.

    Now I am confused beyond repair... need time to recover...
    Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

    Many Thanks

    P.S. I can still boot to the old 2.4.22-xfs kernel via LILO and it boots fine (via Nvidia splash screen and KDE)

  5. #5
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    Can we see the output of ll /vmlinuz*, ll /boot/* and the contents of the /etc/lilo.conf it almost looks like it did not run lilo after the install or you did not after changing the file. For the initrd you do not need one at all if you compile support for your /root file system into the kernel. Also I notice the commands you are using are you doing the compiling as root? If so you should start using the fakeroot package to compile your kernels as a normal user then use su to become root and install the new kernel. The commands would look like this:

    Code:
    make menuconfig
    fakeroot make-kpkg clean
    fakeroot make-kpkg --append-to-version=.version_number kernel_image kernel_headers
    For your Nvidia driver you need to get the source and the patch for it to compile a new driver for the 2.6 kernel you can do that with Kano's script to install the driver after the hd install I would recommend the 4496 one. You would download the script then change to the directory downloaded too and chmod +x name_of_script then ./name_of_script to run this step best done at a console login as root. BTW I posted my config for 2.6.1 so it's there if you want to take a look oh and a couple of guides to compiling a kernel the Debian way if you have not seen them already.

    http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/tut...ernel-pkg.html
    http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2949

  6. #6
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    -In regards to the initrd (and ext2, ext3 support). Here is what my .config looks like:
    I am not sure if this means whether I have "compiled support for the /root filesystem into the kernel", but I suspect it should ? No?

    Code:
     
    # File systems
    #
    CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y
    # CONFIG_EXT2_FS_XATTR is not set
    CONFIG_EXT3_FS=y
    # CONFIG_EXT3_FS_XATTR is not set
    CONFIG_JBD=y
    CONFIG_JBD_DEBUG=y
    CONFIG_REISERFS_FS=y
    # CONFIG_REISERFS_CHECK is not set
    # CONFIG_REISERFS_PROC_INFO is not set
    # CONFIG_JFS_FS is not set
    CONFIG_XFS_FS=m
    CONFIG_XFS_RT=y
    CONFIG_XFS_QUOTA=y
    CONFIG_XFS_POSIX_ACL=y
    # CONFIG_MINIX_FS is not set
    # CONFIG_ROMFS_FS is not set
    # CONFIG_QUOTA is not set
    CONFIG_QUOTACTL=y
    # CONFIG_AUTOFS_FS is not set
    CONFIG_AUTOFS4_FS=m
    -In regards to lilo.conf.
    This is what the file looks like:

    Code:
    boot=/dev/hdb1
    compact
    install=/boot/boot.b
    map=/boot/map
    vga=791
    prompt
    timeout=30
    #append = "hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi apm=power-off nomce"
    append = "apm=power-off nomce"
    
    #Stanza1
    	image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.1
    	label=Kernel(2.6.1)
    	root=/dev/hdb1
    	read-only
    #	initrd=/boot/initrd.gz
    
    #Stanza2
    	image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-xfs
    	label=Kernel(2.4.22)
    	root=/dev/hdb1
    	read-only
    	initrd=/boot/initrd.gz
    
    #Stanza3
    # A Windows installation, example for partition 1 on first IDE harddisk
    #	other=/dev/hda1
    #	label=Windows2000
    #	optional
    #	table=/dev/hda
    I am not sure what you mean by "output of ll /vmlinuz*, ll /boot/* ".
    It is probably something basic but my mind is stuck right now.
    This is the /boot directory listing, but I suspect this is not what you are asking

    Code:
      /boot:
      used 3652 available 651528
      drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         4096 Jan 21 17:17 .
      drwxr-xr-x   29 root     root         4096 Jan 21 16:59 ..
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           16 Jan 21 16:16 System.map -> System.map-2.6.1
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root       541726 Oct  3 21:01 System.map-2.4.22-xfs
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root       665947 Jan 21 16:54 System.map-2.6.1
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           21 Jan 21 16:08 System.map.old -> System.map-2.4.22-xfs
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root          512 Dec 19 23:57 boot.0341
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           12 Jan 21 16:16 config -> config-2.6.1
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        38746 Oct  3 20:36 config-2.4.22-xfs
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        31323 Jan 21 16:31 config-2.6.1
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           17 Jan 21 16:09 config.old -> config-2.4.22-xfs
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           34 Jan  3 18:49 debian.bmp -> /usr/share/lilo/contrib/debian.bmp
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           38 Jan  3 18:49 debianlilo.bmp -> /usr/share/lilo/contrib/debianlilo.bmp
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root       148091 Dec 19 23:57 initrd.gz
      -rw-------    1 root     root        15872 Jan 21 17:05 map
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           33 Jan  3 18:49 sarge.bmp -> /usr/share/lilo/contrib/sarge.bmp
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           31 Jan  3 18:49 sid.bmp -> /usr/share/lilo/contrib/sid.bmp
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           13 Jan 21 16:16 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.1
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root       921593 Oct  3 21:01 vmlinuz-2.4.22-xfs
      -rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1327269 Jan 21 16:54 vmlinuz-2.6.1
      lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           18 Jan 21 16:10 vmlinuz.old -> vmlinuz-2.4.22-xfs
    I will worry about the Nvidia driver later. I thought that the new kernel will be transplanted and pick-up on the existing nvidia driver, but it looks like (as you hinted) it must be done from scratch.

    Thanks for the new links, (no I didn't know about them) I will take a look. Yeesh, I wish there was an up to date centralized newbie documentation.
    The one that I was going by http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/lnag_kernel_upgrade.html was dated back to 1999. On the same token, I had to fish all over the net to find a good sources.list....and still don't know whether I got it right (all these things should be in one place. No ?)

  7. #7
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    On the link that Stephen posted "Osnews, Very Verbose Guide" at one point the author is using:

    make-kpkg clean
    make-kpkg --revision=786:MyKernel2.4.20 kernel_image
    What does the number 786 mean ? Is this a processor thing ?

  8. #8
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    All that looks good except when you boot you get to see the lilo screen and can select the Kernel(2.6.1) right? I ask this because you have boot=/dev/hdb1 which means lilo gets installed to the / partition instead of the MBR so if you are using a lilo that was installed in the MBR then this lilo.conf is not getting used. So if you get to boot properly with the lilo entry and then when it boots you only get the console where you get the message Welcome to .... 2.4.22-xfs this looks like the message of the day (MOTD) is set wrong try uname -a after you have logged in at the console I believe that you are at this point running the 2.6.1 kernel otherwise the Nvidia screen would come up you would get the KDE greeter screen and be able to login graphically like you do when you use the lilo screen entry for the old kernel.

    The revision is similar to the --append-to-version I think but I'm not sure I never use it I always use the append this tells the kernel package program that you are compiling a different version number of the kernel so that when you install it will not overwrite an existing kernel you have installed the number used in either case it is a personal preference for instance when I compile I always use the year, month and day for the number eg. --append-to-version=.040121 for a kernel compiled today if I compile a second one to install then I would put a -2 on the end for the second kernel.

  9. #9
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    when you boot you get to see the lilo screen and can select the Kernel(2.6.1) right?
    You are on the ball !!
    This is exactly what happens. I get a lilo screen (btw it is a red window) which times out in 30ms (as seen in the conf file) and I get to choose between the stanzas.

    When I choose the kernel2.6.1 stanza a lot of text flies by (as it did with the 2.4.22 kernel) but in the end it stops in a login prompt (KDE does not start and off course there is no Nvidia splash screen).
    Then when I login it greets me as kernel 2.4.22? And this confused the heck out of me.

    If as you say it is just the "Message of the day" then it would be relatively good news.
    (sigh... all these details are killing me... I would have never thought of something as innocent as MOTD)

    I will dig deeper.

    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.

    Thanks about the clarification on the "revision" option.

    P.S. Right now I am in the process of double-checking the .config file (based on your 2.6.1 listing as well as the suggestions on the OS news article) to make sure I don't setup more traps for my poor newbie soul later on.

  10. #10
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    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.

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