Just upgraded to Slack 10.1...
 

Well, I officially upgraded to Slackware 10.1. This is absolutely amazing. There have been very apparent updates to several things. For instance, my sound now doesn't sound like total crap without severe adjustments. Just set the volume to a standard level and listen. Before, it seemed like the treble was always maxed out about 10 notches higher than the bass could even reach, now it sounds great.

The pure usage works magnificently. When I use pkgtool to remove software, it's actually removed from the Kmenu too. Don't get me wrong, Slackware has been my favorite for quite some time, but this is just a wonderful update, and all from 10.0 to 10.1.

:D Just thought I'd share my general joy from a belated upgrade.

~ digitalhead

10 wasn't that much differant. It just has older software then 10.1.

:confused:


Anywho, well good

:)

my favorite upgrade in slack 10.1 is the switch from fluxbox 0.1.14 to 0.9.12.:)

Sound issues are kernel related not distro-dependent.

Anyway glad to hear you got it working right :)

Actually, I haven't been able to alter the kernel any without completely killing it (let alone compiling a newer kernel), so I've had to rely on the precompiled kernel from the installation. Don't know where I keep going wrong, but it's not so much of a problem. Does Swaret upgrade the kernel properly? I know it's in the exceptions list, but would it do it for you by using the old config files or something? Just wondering because I used it to upgrade everything else today while I had my machine at work and had a high speed connection to play with (I love KDE 3.4 too :D )

Well I don't use Slackware so I cannot answer your Swaret question.

About compiling kernels. The most critical part is the make xconfig or make menuconfig portion where you need to really be careful while setting the options.

Also what specific problems do you get while compiling kernels? If there is anything specific somebody might be able to help you resolve it.

Well, it's been a while since I attempted, so I can't remember exactly what it comes up with. I remember that every time I compiled a new one, it would come up with a kernel panic, sometimes something about not being able to mount the root filesystem. I reverted to the old kernel and checked all my settings in the configuration for the new one and they all seemed to match what my system would use. So, I have no idea. I followed the instructions of a few different HOW-TOs, which pretty much all said the same thing, used the old config as a base and adjusted new settings accordingly, but it always came down to the kernel panic and locking up. Seven or eight tries and none have worked, so that's why I was hoping Swaret might have the capability.

Aha.

Got it. Did you compile your filesystem support (unless it is ext2) into the kernel?

If you use reiserfs or other filesystems, you must compile the filesystem support into the kernel. Except ext2 I don't think the other options are enabled by default.

I've been using reiserfs with the exception of my Mandrake 10.0 workstation at work that uses ext3, but haven't tried any kernel compiles on it since it already has 2.6.10 (at least I'm pretty sure it's .10 but it's definitely 2.6.x).

I'm fairly certain I enabled the support for it. It's been a while since I've tried the compile/debug, so I can't honestly say "yes, I did" or "no, I didn't". It would definitely sound logical that I could have overlooked that somehow. I might try it again when I have some time to kill. Probably won't be able to find the time until next week unless tomorrow is dead at work and I find a test dummy machine to try it out with. (it's nice having a job where I have 50 computers in the storage room that I can literally play with until I get them ready to be sold ;) )

Even if you had compiled it, it might have been compiled as a module.

If so, you need initrd. If you compile it into the kernel, you don't need initrd.