I've been trying to recompile the 2.4.20 kernel for my linux machine. I'm running RedHat 8.0.

I do:
make mrproper
make xconfig
make dep
make clean
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
make install

I updated GRUB and rebooted. When it rebooted though, it didn't load several modules. I checked /boot and the file module-info was still pointing to my old kernel. There wasn't even a module-info-2.4.20 file in /boot. I checked /lib/modules/2.4.20 and there are only a few modules there even though I had a large number of modules loaded in my kernel.

I recompiled my kernel again and noticed that when I did make modules_install it kept saying this:

make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/<folder>'
make[1]: Nothing to be done for <folder>
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/<folder>'

<folder> was of course whatever module make was looking for.

How do I fix this problem of the kernel not installing my modules?

Thanks ~

are you trying this as root ?

also more of the error listing is really needed what you posted doesn't let anyone know what the problem is. If you could post more of the exact error its throwing it would be easier to diagnose your issue.

I'm doing it as root.

There isn't an error message.. it just doesn't work. It doesn't make the file module-info 2.4.20 or make the modules in /lib/modules/2.4.20

When I boot up with the new kernel a bunch of the "tests" it runs say "FAILED" because the modules weren't loaded.

Thanks for the reply

when you type
make modules, does it spend a while compiling?

when you type make modules_install, do you see
the message at the end, installing modules in ...... ?

It did take a while when I did make modules.. probably 40 minutes or so (I'm using a PIII 550 Mhz).

The last message that make modules_install says is:
cd /lib/modules/2.4.20; \
mkdir -p pcmcia; \
find kernel -path '*/pcmcia/*' -name '*.o' | xargs -i -r ln -sf ../{} pcmcia
if [ -r System.map ]; then /sbin/depmod -ae -F System.map 2.4.20; fi

That message comes after it repeatedly does this:

make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/<folder>'
make[1]: Nothing to be done for <folder>
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-2.4.20/<folder>'

Where <folder> changes based on what module it's trying to install.

Thanks ~

I suppose to remove the 'make clean' which removes all just compiled .o files.
I don't know also how 'make install' works. To be safe just copy /usr/src/.../bzImage to /boot directory and edit lilo/grub conf manually.

does make modules_install give any error?
sometimes with make modules_install,
which does a depmod -a, it returns an error
on modules already existing in the install directory, and
doesn't install the modules. if you delete those first
or us make -i modules_install, it will ignore the errors
and install them all anyway.

So I don't know why it suddenly works... but it does

The only thing I did differently was make modules_install twice (no errors) and then make install. After it worked I looked at /lib/modules/2.4.20/ and all the modules were there..

Does anyone have any idea what my problem was?

Thanks for everybody's help

i used my mojo.