I installed Debian Lenny, as a complete system.
The system is working fine.

Then I downloaded and compiled the latest Linux kernel version 2.6.30.3 in order to replace my older Linux-2.6.26-2-686.

happily I managed to build the bzImage.

For the next README file step, I need to find my older bzImage, and to replace it with the new one, for the grub boot loader.

My question is why can't I find another bzImage file in my system?
If the name is not mandatory (probably that's the case), what should I search for?

Thank you.

Check your grub.conf file for the actual name of the kernel file. Different distros may name them differently. But, on most distros I've seen, the kernel should reside in /boot and the grub.conf should reside in /boot/grub.

Also, don't replace the kernel until you know if it works. Until then, create a second entry into the grub.conf file for the new kernel and boot using that. So, if it fails, you can go back to the old kernel to fix the problem.

Another problem is: If Debian is like Gentoo, the /boot directory is not mounted by default (if it is its own partition). So, you would have to do "mount /boot" first.

bzImage is just a temporary name. I do not know of any reasonable Linux distribution that uses bzImage as the filename for the built kernel.

Linux

You'll need to do something like this, from wherever your bzImage is:
Then write a suitable entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst.
There is probably a "Debian way" of building and installing a new kernel.

Thank you guys.

With your help I found out that the Debian way of storing default grub configuration file is in /boot/grub/menu.lst exactly as the man page on grub declares.

I need to add my new image as another option. I am not going to change the default though.

Now just need to change it carefully, because it contains lots of frightening warnings...

Thanks again.