2.6.7 Kernel questions
 

I recently upgraded the motherboard in my Linux box, and upgraded to Slackware 10.0 from Slackware 9.1 in order to fix some problems caused by the hardware changes. I got everything running again with one of the 2.4.26 kernel that comes with Slackware 10.0.

Since I was changing so much else, I decided to to to compile a 2.6.7 kernel. The compilation went well, I did the standard stuff like

make menuconfig;
make
make modules_install
make install

Just to be sure, I edited my lilo.conf to give the new kernel as a separate option and ran lilo again, even though I know the make install already ran lilo.

That all went fine... when I try to boot the 2.6.7 kernel I've found some things that are a bit different, though...

First, if I try to compile the kernel with the graphical console, the screen just goes black... I know it's doing stuff, but it never displays a prompt. If I append a 4 at the lilo prompt to get it to boot into X, it eventually starts up X, though my USB mouse seems to be non-functional...

I tried turning off the graphical console option and compiled the kernel again. This time I see text like:

Uncompressing image... Done, booting kernel

Then nothing else. Again, if I try to boot into X directly by forcing it to runlevel 4, eventually X comes up, so I know it is actually booting. If I just try a console boot it never shows a prompt, though. Additionally, none of the text scrolls by letting me know that stuff is actually booting up. Is that a new option when compiling the kernel to show/supress those messages? I didn't seem to see anything like that, but I could have easily missed something...

Any thoughts?

when you keep saying "compile" the kernel, i'm guessing you mean boot the kernel? but it sounds like you didn't include the proper framebuffer support when you actually did compile it. if you put vga=normal in your lilo.conf (and rerun lilo) that should allow you to view the boot sequence until you fix the framebuffer issue. if that doesn't work, it's probably something else.

Nope. I meant compile, not boot. I enabled/disabled the Device Drivers->Graphics support->Console display driver support->VGA text console support in the kernel configuration before compiling it. With it enabled, I just get a black screen when it gets to the part where it loads the kernel. With it disabled, I get the text saying that it is loading the kernel, but nothing else after that.

I assumed this setting is what allowed the kernel to even allow for the graphical consoles defined in the lilo.conf. Maybe I'm wrong, though. I'll try setting the vga = normal in the lilo.conf file and see if that makes any difference, though.

Disable all framebuffer/graphical console settings (you don't need these, they have nothing to do with X).
Enable the VGA text console.
Double check :)
Compile & install & boot & enjoy,
It just must work. If not, post your /lib/modules/2.6.7/build/.config file here.

Thanks for the help guys. I did manage to get the framebuffer console working. Not sure what I did differently, but I must have missed some setting in the config before. Now I just gotta figure out why stuff like my USB mouse doesn't work with the new kernel, and it doesn't even seem to be getting power. It's an optical mouse, and no light is lighting up when I boot the new kernel, usbcore is loaded and I'm pretty sure I have hotplugging support compiled into my kernel, but still no go...

Anyway, now that I can actually log into a console and see the boot messages, it'll make it a lot easier to figure out what I'm missing. I'll just have to try and figure out what's different when I boot the 2.4.26 kernel where stuff works properly...