Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Can anyone tell me the steps to perform a manual kernel update in SuSE.
I've gotten through the following steps:
mkdir -p /usr/src/linux/
download 2.6.13.tar.bz2 kernel to dir /usr/src/linux/
tar -jxvf /usr/src/linux/linux-2.6.13.tar.bz2 <not exact filename>.
cd /linux-2.6.13/
make clean
make menuconfig <may have make clean and make menuconfig backwards>
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_Install
When I run mkinitrd /boot/linux-2.6.13 2.6.13 it gives an error about an entry not being in fstab.
Novell's website says to use the rpm but I'd rather do it manually to set the options I want using make menuconfig. I know that usually, the mkinitrd works fine, but for some reason in SuSE, it's not working or I don't know the right switches. Also, what do I do after this? How do I edit grub.conf to boot the new kernel but still allow me to boot to the old one if I need to?
- you can combine 'make bzImage' and 'make modules' by running just 'make'
- after the bzImage has been created, you need to install the kernel. Either run 'make install', or copy the kernel (bzImage) and System.map to /boot
- you need to add the kernel to your bootloader to be able to choose it from the menu. That may already been done by 'make install' (never tried).
and that should be it? I'll try it when I get home tonight. I'm just concerned I guess because the mkinitrd didn't work. and the grub.conf file didn't appear to have anything in it in suse. but the only grub.conf file I could find to speak of was in /etc/grub.conf. There wasn't a grub.conf in the /boot/grub/ directory like there normally would be. SuSE is kinda funny like that. Or maybe the other distros haven't caught up yet? hmm?
then add a line for the new kernel to the file /boot/grub/menu.lst to boot to it and leave the old one in there in case the new one doesn't work? I'll let you know tomorrow if it works.
No.You don't need to backup those files in /boot. The kernel binary will be named with the version number and can be addressed directly from menu.lst. So you can have multiple kernel in /boot. When you run mkinitrd, make sure you name the initrd file accordingly, e.g. 'mkinitrd -k vmlinuz-2.6.13 -i initrd-2.6.13'. If you really like, you can change the symlinks (vmlinuz,initrd and system.map) to the newest kernel. However, I don't think this is necessary. My symlinks still point to the original SUSE kernel.
If you are not sure about this procedure, run 'make install' and everything should be done for you automatically.
I have a situation where my initrd file in the boot directory is about 5meg. after builging new kernel (original is 1.7 meg) and it wont boot with new kernel. I have used both make install & installkernel with same result. Any ideas about why the initrd is so big? - thanks
No, unfortunately I have no idea how 'make install' creates the initrd. On my system, both kernel and initrd are about 1.5-1.8 MB. But if you include a lot of driver into your kernel, it can easily get bigger. The same with initrd, it depends on what's packed inside. Just for fun, you can have a look in your initrd. It won't necessarily help with your problem, but you may find what's using the space.
Code:
cp /boot/initrd-whatsoever /boot/lookinside.gz
gunzip /boot/lookinside.gz
mkdir /mnt/lookinside
mount -o /boot/lookinside /mnt/lookinside
cd /mnt/lookinside
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.