hello,

I am a newbie. I am having a problem installing linux-2.4.20
on red hat 8.0. I have followed the installation procedure.

make xconfig
make dep
make clean
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
make install

I'm using grub.

Problem:

1. when I boot with red hat 2.4.18-14 I see the boot directory
has grub directory, but when I boot with linux -2.4.20 my boot
directory has only kernel.h. there is no grub or vmlinuz or module-info, System.map etc.

2. my eth0 installs correctly with red 2.4.18-14 but with

problem restated:

2. my eth0 installs correctly with red 2.4.18-14 but fails with
linux-2.4.20.

Instead of running the command "make install" you might want to try copying arch/i386/boot/bzImage from your kernel source directory to your /boot directory and then manually editing your grub.conf file to boot the new kernel image but before you edit grub.conf back it up first. The command "make modules install" will install the kernel modules to /lib/modules/2.4.20 which is where they should be. Your eth0 may not be recognized and configured properly because the kernel module it requires was has not been compiled if your not sure which module it needs try enabling module support on all the cards under: Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit) within Network device support of your kernel config. A good site to visit on kernel compiling info is http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO/
it's helped me. Also you might want to try using a pre-configured kernel config file usually it will come with you linux distro under /usr/src/linux or /boot if not you can try google searching for one. Hope this helps some, configuring\compiling kernels isn't easy but neither is learning to ride a bike yet both can be accomplished with time and patience.

Thanks for the DarkXtar,

I have tried to manually copy the bzImage to /boot.

But why can't I see my /boot directory as I see it when I boot with red hat 2.4.18-14. It seems that 2.4.20 is looking at some new /boot directory, there is only kernel.h file in here.


Thanks

do you have a separate /boot partition ?
maybe it's booting from /boot, but not loading /boot in
fstab?

if your grub.conf is in /boot/grub you could look at
it and see where your kernels are.

thanks for the reply whansard,

I don't have a seperate /boot partition.

There is no /boot/grub when i start with 2.4.20. However, it is there when I start with red hat 2.4.18-14. I can see other kernels
there as well including vmlinuz-2.4.20, but this is older version. I cannot up update this.

under 2.4.20 /boot contents are
kernel.h vmlinuz-2.4.20

under red hat 2.4.18-14 /boot contents are

boot.b
message.ja
vmlinux-2.4.18-14
chain.b
module-info
vmlinuz
config-2.4.18-14
module-info-2.4.18-14
vmlinuz-2.4.18
grub
os2_d.b
vmlinuz-2.4.18-14
initrd-2.4.18-14.img
System.map
initrd-2.4.18.img
System.map-2.4.18
vmlinuz-2.4.20
initrd-2.4.20.img
System.map-2.4.18-14
kernel.h
lost+found
System.map-2.4.20
vmlinuz-2.4.20.old
mann_vmlinuz-2.4
message

Thanks

i'm almost speechless.

can you post the output of
fdisk -l
and
cat /etc/fstab
and
/boot/grub/grub.conf when you can see it

maybe cat /etc/mtab would be handy too?

If you just want the 2.4.20 kernel run up2date. I think RedHat will give you their precompiled version. It make not be as sexy as rolling your own but it will work.

Good Luck

hello Wansard,

I decided to reinstall redhat 8.0. and thing are back to normal.
I can see my boot dirctory from 2.4.20 and redhat 2.4.18-14.
However, now i am back to my problem of not having the etho failure at bootup.

I guess may having my own kernel 2.4.20 is not in the cards for untill I get more knowledge of linux. So I am reading understanding the linux kernel.

I will be accepted by LINUX.

But I have decided to do
rpm -Uvh kernel-2.4.20-13.8.i386.rpm
which has not worked either.






I did make xconfig on redhat version and 2.4.20 version it looks like red has is adding more to configuration.


So if you can help I need to resolve two problem.

1. 3com 3c590/3c595/3c590x/3cx980 ethernet card module is not being loaded. I read in the Howto that I may have to load the build and load the module manually. What do I need to do?

2. I have a wireless card from SMC that i need get working.




Thanks for the help.

Here is my fdisk -l listing after red hat 8.0 was installed:

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 7296 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hda1 1 4 32098+ de Dell Utility
/dev/hda2 5 3660 29366820 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 * 3661 3673 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 3674 7296 29101747+ f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 3674 7042 27061461 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 7043 7296 2040223+ 82 Linux swap


Why do I have
/dev/hda5 Linux and
/dev/hda3 Linux

Shouldn't there be just a one Linux partition and one Linux swap partition?

i knew it. you have a linux boot partition and you
didn't know it. that's what hda3 is.
maybe it's formatted reiserfs or something and the
second kernel you were trying to use couldn't read it,
but your root is just ext2 maybe.
post the output
of
mount
and or
cat /etc/fstab

I guess I am way in weeds. here is the info


cat /etc/fstab

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0


cat /etc/mtab
/dev/hda5 / ext3 rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs rw 0 0
/dev/hda3 /boot ext3 rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
none /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw 0 0

at least we know now you have a boot partition and
that was what was going on with you not being able
to see the files in /boot sometimes.
i guess now it's your choice what to do. you can get
rid of the boot, or make the boot ext2 or leave it like it
is or whatever.

I want to keep boot. What changes are needed to make sure
I alway boot from /boot


# grub.conf generated by anaconda
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file

# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that

# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.

# root (hd0,2)

# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda5
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-14) root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=LABEL=/ hdb=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.18-14.img
title DOS
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

thanks