I just moved into my new house and decided to go wireless, did my research and got a Netgear card for my laptop running Slack 10.

(I am not nocking anyone with this post, I greatly appreciate the help that comes from this forum, just trying to figure out how to become WinFree. Sidenote - been trying to get DVD's to work for 1 year now.....ugh!_

OMG, I spent two weeks straight trying to compile the 2.6.7 kernel because it had the Prism54 drivers loaded which where needed to use the Netgear card. I read and followed Daones kernel compile for newbies. But something did not go right, booting to Linux would not work kept saying lilo is to large for second pass???? I Rebooted to slack.old everything was ok, tried to recompile but kept erroring out during "make modules" something about alsa. So I reinstalled and followed the other post from Daone, I was able to boot to the new kernel. But no video on my consoles, no sound, and the wireless card was not working. But I was able to startx!!w00t. I looked around and was told this was a common problem, but I would have to recomile the kernel with the video, sound, and network options like so. ugh! I went off the deep end and downloaded a Distro with 2.6.7 as the default kernel just to try, that went over like a fart in church. I proceded to Shilos guide and this didn't work either, finally feed up I fdisk my HD and reinstalled again. Went to Linuxant and was up and running in 10 minutes on my wireless card, WTF??????

Now I have been using linux for 3 years. Is any one else having these problems upgrading kernels or installing wireless cards? I googled kernel upgrading and compiling and found 50 different ways to compile a kernel. This is crazy. I even tried to install the 2.6.7 kernel from the second 2nd CD of Slack 10 and I don't know what happened. I ran pgktool, once that finished I couldn't find the new kernel.

I am no linux guru or claim to have tons of knowledge, but there has to be a easier way to do this. I downloaded the 2.6.7 kernel from kernel.org, is there other options that Slack uses that i missed?

Anyway just ranting a little......Thanks.

How did you install your kernel, are you sure you did copy the good files ?

kernel is : /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage => /boot/vmlinuz
System.map is : /usr/src/linux/System.map => /boot/System.map

You can configure kernel from a workable config if you uncompress the kernel package in a directory, then locate the kernel config file, copy it in /usr/src/linux/.conf (before you have to do the symlink of your kernel source tree to /usr/src/linux tough) then run make olconfig, or run make menuconfig directly and load the config, after that fine tune it to suit your wishes.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but I have compiled and configured the 2.6.7 kernel probably 20 times in the past week.

Work in the KDE or what ever you like and just open up a terminal.

Download a tar.gz of the kernel and expand it in /usr/src

# rm -f linux
# ln -s linux-2.6.7 linux
# cd linux

this sets your new link and puts you into the 2.6.7 directory.

You want to edit the Makefile. There is a # export something INSTALL=/boot line in there you need to uncomment.
Just seach for 'boot' in Kedit of whatever. It will be only 1 of 2 boot words in the file. Can't miss it.

edit your /etc/lilo.conf make a copy of your current section and copy it to make another. Call your current one
vmlinuz.old and fix the identifier and leave the other vmlinuz and set it to a new identifier. No spaces in the name.
I call mu current linux2.6.7 and my old linux2.4.22.

Once you do the above, you will be set to begin doing to real kernel stuff. You don't need to repeat the previous
steps ever again.

find the .defconfig file in the linux dir and
# cp .defconfig /usr/src/linux/.config

Its a good place to start. If you copy over
a kernel .config from 2.4.x tons of issues.

# make xconfig
will bring up a gui for the kernel config. Check through the options in there and see if there are any you
must have. Reiserfs is NOT turned on. Turn it on or you will get a kernel panic. Also, uncheck the boxes about console and
logo, VGA, etc. If the video flips out, which on mine it does during boot, it may prevent a black screen you can't recover from
except my reboot. I wouldn't mess with anything at the current except the PC arch area. Select your brand of cpu, memory
support, etc. save the file and close it out.
also,

#make
This will being the long make. Go get a drink, watch tv. Takes a little while.

#su -c "make modules_install"
sets up module installers. Take 5sec

#make install
it writes to lilo.

Double check lilo.conf to make sure both selections point to your boot drive as well as point to their
corrent vmlinuz, vmlinuz.old targets. At this point, I copied vmlinuz.old to vmlinuz-2.4.22 and changed the
lilo.conf target to this as not to overwrite the vmlinuz.old by mistake one time. After 20 compiles from either
kernel, no problems as of yet with it.

#reboot

select the new kernel and there you go.

Now, if you have an nvidia card, make sure you have the installer on your system for the drivers. You need to reinstall the
kernel modules for the driver otherwise your GLX will not work if your using it. After the reboot, do a # sh nvid6106 -s -K
where nvid6106 is the name of the NVIDIA driver file you used. Long name, i just linked it to nvid6106 to make it quick.
These options make it give you no questions and only installs the kernel module.

If all works well and you can get into X, immediately copy the .config file in usr/src/linux and save that working version.
I call it .config-glx-working

Now play time. Open up terminal again, and repeat from make mrproper down, except, after mrproper, cp .config-glx-working .config

then make xconfig. make a 1-3 mods, keep a log of your changes, save, make, etc, reboot and see if it worked. if it did, sweet. Repeat, if it didn't and your stuck in terminal,
#cd /usr/src/linux
#rm .config
#make mrproper
#cp .config-glx-working .config
#make
and so on. Reboot, recompile video modules, your back where you started.

Hope this could help you out a bit.

THe only thing I've ever found to be tricky in compiling a new kernel is all the choices during (menuconfig, gconfig, xconfig, etc.) To that end, here's what I do. go through the guide (take your pick, they are all good. I'm gonna reference mine, though ) up to the gconfig. Now, in gconfig, there is a "load" button. Use that to load up a working kernel config file. You should be able to find one in /boot (/boot/config-ide-2.4.26 is probably a good choice). Now, make only the changes that you need inside gconfig and continue with the guide. You should be up and running in no time. I found that just starting up gconfig and going at it from scratch usually messes a lot of stuff up. Another tip is to read the help window on all of the options. I just blindly follow the advice there when I don't know what to do.


***EDIT***

I just skimmed through the above post. I forgot about the new defconfig. That might be a better choice than the 2.4 config from /boot.

Ok I have tried my hand at the 2.6 level kernels with no luck. But I seem to remember "make mr.proper" was still required but no one has mentioned it above... Is it no longer required prior to kernel configuring to "fix" the sources???
I also think the just 2.6.6 is the latest stable release and that 2.6.7 is still considered a pre or rc (release candidate). Bleeding edge is usually that --- bleeding and edgey...

Anyway the clustering wares I use require kernels 2.4.26< and those are easy to build...

make mrproper is not need the first time you compile a kernel. It is for subsequent recompiles. That's my understanding, at least.

2.6.7 is the currentr stable release. I believe the most current release candidate is 2.6.8rc3.

When you say:

Were you not able to get a working kernel, or did you just not like kernel series?

I could not get a working kernel.
I followed every HOWTO and help I could find. I even did the step by step with 2.4.26 in one console and 2.6.6 in the other console to do a directly same configuration of a generic ide kernel with no luck.

Since it was such a pain and NOT supported by cluster wares I decided it was just a waste of time anyway. So a couple of things that I wanted from the 2.6 got patched into the 2.4.26 and all is well.

I did not even try the generic 2.6 with slack 10.

What were the errors when you tried to boot kernel 2.6, root filesystem error ? blank screen ? I did not succeed too to compile a 2.6 kernel at the first time, because some features are not in the same place, but if you try, you will succeed at last

Lots of blank screens and yes I had the framebuffer in.
It stopped cold a few times also while booting, no error or panic just stopped.
The last time I did a 2.6 compile was the one I did with the side by side configure with a working 2.4.26 .config in one window and 2.6 in the other with xconfig.
It booted up all the way to log in. After log in I had about half a computer that was EXTREMELY unstable, no X, barely working till it locked, crashed and died.
That was the last time I mess with that problem and dumped the src and related to the nether of the trash bin.

You might want to try running your system stock while your compiling and booting the new kernel the first time. Know your hardware from the inside out and read the help on all the kernel options so you don't have to guess at all. If you don't know what is going to happen when you choose (Y) (N) or <M>, then find out. Read change logs, read the source, read the errors and do whatever you can to understand what you're reading. The reason I like Linux, and especially Slackware, is because this is possible, there are no secrets.
Remember, if the kernel compile fails, or refuses to boot, it not the kernels fault, there is something you must have missed.

LOL... IF you read my sig that I bet you will gather I know a great deal about computers and OSs that run them. I have no "stock" machines. Every computer I have is a complete custom job. That is the reason I run custom kernels to match the custom boxes.
When I build a box I know by vendor and chip what goes in it. Not only do I know the kernel help files but I also have read and do use the kernel documentation (/usr/src/linux/Documentation).
I can build 2.4.# level kernels with my eyes closed and not even on the box they will be running on prior to even building the box.
And yes I do know what is the required minimum that a kernel MUST have compiled into it to make a working bootable kernel. I always send the compile output to files with hup so I can check for errors which is standard compile common sense.
Like I said me and 2.6.# don't get along and it is not worth my time to waste on it until it becomes the next standard in openMosix.

Yes, I read your sig. I also read the symptom of your problems, ie." EXTREMELY unstable" I overclock too and when any operating system is extremely unstable in an overclocked machine, I don't blame it on a stable kernel release that thousands of people have tested with success.

Nichole_knc,

since you got black screens and hanging at boot...
could it be that overclocking causes your problem.??
i had some problems with that,( had to move back slightly ).
eversince i always try new kernels at normal clock speed.

BTW : i never had problems with 2.6.7

egag

I have tried on one of my servers which is not OvrClked and still had the same issues...
But like I stated "when" openMosix reaches the 2.6 level kernel then I will attempt to use it. It is not to my knowledge used very much yet in clustering. Both openMosix and PVM are well suited to the stable and well tested 2.4 level kernels.

As far as what the masses use I really don't care as long as what I use "works" the way I intend it to and the way the docs spell it out...

Edit.....
If a "new" kernel cannot boot at the pushed speeds I am running at, even after the box post and was stable on a prior kernel and OS... THEN I don't need that "new" kernel anyway and I replace it
I also punch the processor with the latest microcodes, push to no post, back down till stable post, back till OS stable xTIME(T) and if a processor fails or cannot handle it I just replace it. If memory fails I just replace it too. These are machines and they will work they way I desire them to both in hardware and software.

cool