kernel upgradation

kris.c · 05-23-2007, 12:34 PM

I tried to update my SUSE-10.0 which came with kernel version number 2.6.13-15-default to the latest 2.6.21. I have copied the new bzImage and the System.map to the /boot directory. Now, I have to edit the "lilo.config" file. But the file doesnt exist in the /etc on my comp. When i tried to search for it, I got his outpout:

Code:

whereis lilo
lilo: /sbin/lilo /usr/share/man/man8/lilo.8

Ironically, there are many references to "/etc/lilo.config" in the file lilo.8.
I am a little concerned here, what should i do modify the boot loader. I hope someone replies soon. What can happen if i am forced to switch off my comp at this stage?

Matir · 05-23-2007, 12:59 PM

If you replaced the old kernel, your system would probably fail to restart.

In any case, LILO's config should be at /etc/lilo.conf. Are there no files starting with 'lilo' in /etc?

kris.c · 05-23-2007, 01:12 PM

Thanks for the reply.No, there seems to be no such file in /etc

Code:

linux:/etc # ls -la lilo.config
/bin/ls: lilo.config: No such file or directory

What can i do?

kris.c · 05-23-2007, 01:25 PM

If this helps in any way:

Code:

linux:/etc # ls *.conf
capi.conf         host.conf      ld.so.conf      mysqlaccess.conf  openct.conf   resolv.conf   smpppd-c.conf  xinetd.conf
dhcpd.conf        idmapd.conf    ldap.conf       named.conf        opensc.conf   rpasswd.conf  smpppd.conf
esd.conf          idn.conf       lftp.conf       nscd.conf         pnm2ppa.conf  rsyncd.conf   snmpd.conf
fam.conf          idnalias.conf  logrotate.conf  nss_mdns.conf     powerd.conf   scpm.conf     sysctl.conf
grub.conf         insserv.conf   modprobe.conf   nsswitch.conf     reader.conf   sensors.conf  uniconf.conf
gssapi_mech.conf  krb5.conf      mtools.conf     ntp.conf          resmgr.conf   slp.conf      wvdial.conf

Matir · 05-23-2007, 01:26 PM

What does "ls -al /etc/lilo*" show?

Matir · 05-23-2007, 01:26 PM

This may seem silly, but are you certain you are using Lilo? What distribution do you run?

kris.c · 05-23-2007, 01:27 PM

Code:

linux:/etc # ls -al /etc/lilo*
/bin/ls: /etc/lilo*: No such file or directory

kris.c · 05-23-2007, 01:29 PM

I am using SUSE-10.0 About lilo, I dont really know. I have never tinkered around with this before. Is there any other file that can contain the equivalent information?

sycamorex · 05-23-2007, 03:47 PM

I've never used either Suse or Lilo, however, possibly you're using GRUB (instead of Lilo)
In that case the file you are looking for might be /boot/grub/menu.lst
At least it is there on Debian-based systems.

Matir · 05-23-2007, 03:51 PM

Yeah, Suse 10 would use grub. I would look and see if it has the update-grub script that will automatically update your grub config.

kris.c · 05-23-2007, 11:04 PM

Thanks a lot.. It worked!!!

kris.c · 05-23-2007, 11:37 PM

As another doubt, the menu.lst in /boot/grub on a Fedora-core 4 machine, has lines like :

Code:

  kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 ro root=LABEL=/
  initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4.img

The initrd line was absent on my SUSE machine.
The equivalent initrd for the kernel that i am trying to upgrade to has not been created in the /boot directory.
How important is the initrd file?
Can I boot into the new kernel without including this line in the menu.lst file?
What should i set it to?

kris.c · 05-24-2007, 12:04 AM

Ok, with a bit og googling, i realised, i need the initrd if my device has SCSI devices. And my device does have SCSI devices. So, i found out that i need to do something like:

Code:

[root@dx1 boot]# /sbin/mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.6.21.img 2.6.21

Where 2.6.21 is the new kernel directory in /lib/modules.
But, this is the error message i got:

Code:

No module mptbase found for kernel 2.6.21, aborting.

How do i get around this issue?

kris.c · 05-24-2007, 08:44 AM

Well, i got around that by commenting out all references to the mptbase and its now working.
Also, I had to compile the kernel on another machine so that I can conduct my TIPC experiments, I faced a new peoblem, though there was sufficient space in the hard disk of this machine, i got error messages saying something like - the images are too large and that some of the files have been truncated for both "make zImage" as well as "make bzImage". As a result of which the images have not been created in the /arch/i386/boot.
Is there a way out?
Out of curiosity, can i copy the bzImage that i created a few hours back on another machine into this machine's /arch/i386/boot directory and use it?. Both are of exactly the same architecture.

kris.c · 05-24-2007, 11:43 PM

To be precise, this is the error message that i got :

Code:

BFD: Warning: Writing section `.bss' to huge (ie negative) file offset 0xc0555000.
objcopy: arch/i386/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin: File truncated
make[2]: *** [arch/i386/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin] Error 1
make[1]: *** [arch/i386/boot/compressed/vmlinux] Error 2
make: *** [bzImage] Error 2