I've been sitting on my butt all day today for like 5 straight hours just trying to get kernel v2.6.5 going!! I don't know what to do, the questions just keep coming. I hate it. Do you guys actually go though the whole config to compile a kernel???

Is there any way I can just get 2.6.5 on there in a slightly easier way than this so I can get my USB-ethernet NIC working??

You have to go through it all.

You could use the defaults, but there is no way to know if the features you need are going to be included in the final product.

Have you considered upgrading to Mandrake 10 where your USB NIC may (not sure) work out of the box? Also, instead of "make config" try "make menuconfig" or "make xconfig".

Make xconfig doesn't work cause I don't have the right developers kit. I think it's the QT developers kit? Yeah. I'll try make menuconfig though.

Is there a way to save where I was and continue later?

or make gconfig if you have gtk installed

I don't have gtk either ...

I'm using debian ... how would one go about installing these modules?

Here's a link for you.

http://anarka.org/linux/debian_kernel.html

I suggest menuconfig. It's easier to go through the options. y=compile into kernel, m=compile as module, n=don't include.

Use menuconfig which is a text based menu system that uses ncurses. Easier than make config and doesn't require what xconfig needs.

Hey Orange400,

Don't have such a hard time configuring your kernel man, it's really easy!, but you must be organized when you configure your kernel!

The first thing you should do, and this is a suggestion, is to write down on a piece of paper...
Every single piece of hardware you must configure to use in your computer;
Start with your Monitor, and work all the way into your pc down to the modem, hardrives, video card, etc...

Along them, write their Drivers, because you need them to know what to enable in the kernel and what to not enable.

This should make your configuration 50% faster...all you have to do is find it in the kernel, and select it. That's the other 50%.

I've always used> make menuconfig
and it has always worked beautifully.
I just compiled the 2.6.5, and it took me like 15 minutes configuring it.

So, you really should have a hard time with it bro!, any other questions, fire'em.

lol ... typo

I know all of my configuration by heart. Even most of the IRQ and DMA stuff. And it's even a laptop. I'm fluent in PC hardware ... been doin it since the 486s. I overclock too

I'm guessing that make menuconfig = make config ... I tried make menuconfig but that didn't work either. But make config works.

I also found the debian package installer ... it was ... lol ... right on the KDE menu Why didn't I see that?? I supposedly installed etereal on it but I'm not sure if I did it. I'm too n00b to start ethereal.

The reason "make menuconfig" doesn't work is most likely because libncurses5-dev is not installed. As root, type "apt-get install libncurses5-dev" in a terminal and "make menuconfig" should work just fine.

oh, yeah bro, that was a big typo, hehehe, sorry.

Ah, cool try what comp12345 said, and if your make menuconfig works, then you will be very greatful it did, hehehe, it's so much nicer,

zLinuxz

Ahh, I would apt-get, but neither of my ethernet interfaces are working. In fact, I'm trying to recompile the kernel to get them going. Isn't that a /dev/null (I'm sure you've NEVER heard that before )

I have some stuff on my debian cd too, including the QT stuff. I'm fooling around with the X package installer, hopefully I can make it boogie.

Two steps:

Make oldconfig. That'll bring your old kernel configs into the 2.6.5 kernel directory, and updates them for the new kernel. It'll ask you a question or two in the config style, but not many.
Then run: make menuconfig.
That is a much better interface for it!

I have ncurses (for menuconfig), gtk (gconfig), and qt (kconfig) stuff installed and make can't detect any of em! What's wrong?