Using a kernel image from -current?

shadin · 07-30-2006, 06:41 PM

I installed Slackware using the test26.s kernel found on the CD, followed up by installing the alsa-driver, kernel-modules, and kernel-source for 2.6.13 found on the second installation disc. Recently I tried to recompile my kernel for SMP and HIGHMEM following shilo's guide, but I obviously did something wrong. Ended up not being able to boot the new image, and messing up the other's modules in the process.

So apparently the kernel is still too advanced for me. However, it's irritating that I have a dual-core Opteron and 2GB of RAM that aren't being utilized. Does anyone know if the kernels found in -current have SMP and HIGHMEM enabled? And if so, how would one go about installing them on a running system?

jimX86 · 07-30-2006, 07:37 PM

AFAIK, those options are still unset.

Have you tried using the .config file from a working kernel and just changing the two options you need? I can't remember if Shilo's docs talk about using an existing .config file or not. If not, maybe this will help.
http://www.slackware.com/~alien/doku...kernelbuilding

(Trust me, you're not the only one who ever builds broken kernels. Give it another shot...)

redxii · 07-30-2006, 07:39 PM

Pat uses a generic config and even in the latest in -current, which is 2.6.17.7 or 2.6.16.27, highmem is not enabled and the CPU is set to 486 with SMP disabled.

Perhaps you should look at DaOne's 2.6.x guide.

shadin · 07-30-2006, 07:48 PM

That looks like a really good guide. Not that shilo's isn't great, I just don't think it's geared to what I'm needing to do. Since my /home is on a different partition, I might just start clean and give those instructions a run. I just got frustrated because the night before I had installed Doom 3, Quake 4, Neverwinter Nights, and UT2K4 (those games being the reason I wanted slack to use my second CPU and all my RAM).

Ah well. My second hard drive I use for Slackware is 250GB, and doesn't yet use anywhere near that amount. Maybe I'll install twice and have a testbed, and make the changes on my main one once I know it works.

drkstr · 07-30-2006, 07:53 PM

I keep hearing about using a pre-made .config, but for some reason, I have never been able to get Pat's .config to work on any of my machines. No matter how many times I went though it to see what I missed, it would still fail to boot. This is probably no ones fault but my own, but I always had to do a 'make distclean' and start fresh. Sorry if this is off topic, but maybe it could help (I added in himem support into my kernel as well).

regards,
...drkstr