I recompiled my exisiting Debian kernel from 2.4.18-386 to the latest stable kernel 2.4.21, however, whenever I try to boot into the new kernel, it gets into a nasty restart loop.

It seems to be restarting as it loads the initrd.img file (I am using GRUB by the way, the same thing happens in LILO, although it doesn't show anything before it restarts). Do I need to build a new initrd.img file to match the new kernel, and if so, how do I do that?

Hi,

i never used one of those initrd.img files, i just booted my kernel the old way, and it worked fine

Also you should build your kernel with the make-kpkg command, that's building kernels the debian way

Just go into your src tree (/usr/src/linux) configure your kernel by your needs (make menuconfig) and after that just run a:

make-kpkg kernel_image

after building the kernels and modules you can find a package named

kernel-image-$version_10.00.Custom_$arch.deb

in /usr/src. Now just do a

dpkg --install kernel-image-$version_10.00.Custom_$arch.deb

and everything will be done fully automatic, you will be asked to build a bootdisk (no) and after that your boot-config will be updated

btw: In 2.4.21 there is a DMA problem, you have to enable DMA by hand...

cu

Thanks for your help!

I'm slightly in case you didn't figure it out - how do I enable the DMA manually?

Disregard that last one - it's fine

Cheerio!

I had no troubles compiling the kernel, but when I boot it nothing works!!! what should I take care??

Most likely it has to do with the boot file you are using, either GRUB or LILO. The standard steps to compile the kernel are:

unzip kernel.X.X.X.gz into /usr/src
ln -s /usr/src/kernel.X.X.X /usr/src/linux
cd /usr/src/linux
copy a known good kernel's config file to /usr/src/linux
(or just start from scratch: make mrproper)
make menuconfig (select the kernel configuration you want)
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
make install

The last step will update the GRUB boot file for the newly compiled kernel. I don't know what distribution you are running InK, so these are the general installation steps. I compiled on Redhat using these and it worked fine.

I use Debian Woody, and I followed succesfully those steps, and the next too: configuring lilo

If you're serious about this Debian thing , you should really compile your kernel the Debian Way. Unfortunately, the Debian official documentation is pretty awful - not incorrect, just useless if you've never done it before.

Luckily, there are some good HowTos around the 'net. I particularly like this one.

HTH,
Ab.