compiling woes
 

hi.
i have a slackware 9.0. Recently i tried to upgrade my kernel to version 2.4.21, so i downloaded the precompiled packages from the ftp site and followed the instructions to upgrade. after reboot i find that the system is no longer the same... all the modules gone and startx failed..... i had tried to compile my own kernel once (2.4.20) and ended up the same.... and i thought upgrade via the precompiled packages is the safest for newbie, some how i think i was wrong. is ther a way to go back now?

after all, is it each time when u compile ur own / upgrade kernel all the modules will gone? i read the kernel compiling guide from DaOne, they seemed still have the modules running....

sigh.....

when u choose what u want in menuconfig

instead of pressing Y, press M

that way u'll see the selected stuff as <M>, not <*>, that means its a module


its not entirely necessary to do that though, stuff could still work even not as modules

I'm assuming the 2.4.21 is a .tgz package. Did it come w/ the 2.4.21: headers, modules and source? If so then do, as root,:

#upgradepkg --verbose <name of pkg.tgz>

If you do not have the 'old' source installed:
#upgradepkg --install-new --verbose <name of pkg.tgz>

I'm not sure if this applies to what you're wanting.

BC

Your modules could be gone for a few reasons:

A) You forgot to enable the option to make the kernel modular when you were in the menuconfig

B) The kernel is modular, but you didn't set all the options for your hardware that you should've.

In menuconfig, <*> means an option will be hard-coded into your kernel, whereas <M> means an option will be loaded on demand via a kernel module. And, of course, < > means an option wasn't selected at all.

>>"is ther a way to go back now?"

Assuming you followed DaOne's compile guide step-by-step, yes. If all went well, your LILO bootloader should contain an option that's something like "vlinuz.old." Just select that to boot using the old kernel and modules.

well i understand how to select a kernel, compile it as modules or straight into it.....

the strangest will be, i tried to compile emuk10k into the kernel since ihave an audigy soundcard, but when the system was up, the kde still prompt an error regarding the sound server(like u haven't setup ur soundcard).... and modprobe was also a mess( whether it was compiled as modules or into the kernel, i have tried both), it said something like the files end with .o extension was no where to find and stuff like that....

as for the upgrade pkg, i've done what the site has told me to....

any ideas?

1) If you can get back to your good kernel 2.4.20, boot into it.
2) From the Slackware folder "patches/packages" retrieve the kernel*.tgz files except the xfs files if you don't need them.
Get the "patches/kernels" folder.

3) Delete the /lib/modules/2.4.21 and the /usr/src/2.4.21 folders.
Delete the /boot/2.4.21 kernel, config, and system.map files

4) Run pkgtool to install, run lilo if running lilo. This will install the new kernel and supporting files without user intervention.
Done

If you go the route of downloading the kernel sources and follow the directions at the top of this forum and don't change the .config
file this time you will get a new working 2.4.21 system.
Don't be fooled the .config is not as easy to mess with as a lot think, there are a lot of dependences and usually not much if anything improves performance as much as you might think.

If you can't resist and must change something, change the processor type and turn off math co-processing. :D

Thoroughly check
dmesg
output, and look at /varl/log/messages
/varl/log/syslog
/varl/log/debug
to see whether there's any reference
(positive or negative) to your sound
driver...

Cheers,
Tink