Kernel Cleanup

RedShirt · 01-09-2006, 08:51 PM

After switching guides multiple times over the past few months in kernel swaps, all of them with slightly different guides, and then using KOTD rpms from SuSE, my system is quite junked up in regards to the kernel. This leaves me with a few issues, mostly though that the booting kernel does not make the kernel source.

I have updated the kernel... well a bunch of times now. And the first few times went fine(well actually all of them did in terms of being bootable) but I appear to have started missing out on a few things after those first few times due to guides missing steps/information.

Here is a bunch of relevant information:

Code:

rpm -qa | grep kernel

For which my output is:

Code:

kernel-default-debuginfo-2.6.15-20060105164408
kernel-source-2.6.15-20060105164408
kernel-update-tool-0.9-10
kernel-docs-2.6.13-15
kernel-default-2.6.15-20060105164408

Now, a few things here, I know this can't be right, because I set the GRUB loader to the new kerne I made, 2.6.15-mm, and I get that:

Code:

uname -r

Code:

2.6.15-mm

So obviously I don't have my pointers working or something, which makes sense because I have a ton of stuff in my /usr/src now. So I could use some help cleaning it up properly and getting the pointers doing what they are supposed to do.

Code:

Garibaldi:/usr/src # dir
total 28
drwxr-xr-x *14 root * * root *4096 2006-01-07 14:46 .
drwxr-xr-x *13 root * * root *4096 2005-10-14 08:07 ..
drwxr-xr-x * 2 root * * root * *66 2006-01-08 07:44 ATI
drwxr-xr-x * 3 root * * root * *34 2006-01-07 09:53 debug
drwxr-xr-x *14 root * * root *4096 2006-01-07 19:24 kernel-modules
lrwxrwxrwx * 1 root * * root * *12 2006-01-07 14:46 linux -> linux-2.6.15
drwxr-xr-x *17 root * * root *4096 2005-11-19 07:52 linux-2.6.13-15
drwxr-xr-x *20 redshirt users 4096 2005-11-17 21:10 linux-2.6.14.1
drwxr-xr-x * 3 root * * root * *20 2005-11-28 06:29 linux-2.6.14.2-20051118171902
drwxr-xr-x * 3 root * * root * *20 2005-12-26 20:08 linux-2.6.14.3-20051126230009
drwxr-xr-x *20 root * * root *4096 2006-01-07 15:29 linux-2.6.15
drwxr-xr-x *20 root * * root *4096 2006-01-07 14:45 linux-2.6.15-20060105164408
drwxr-xr-x * 3 root * * root * *17 2006-01-05 10:22 linux-2.6.15-20060105164408-obj
drwxr-xr-x * 3 root * * root * *20 2006-01-07 09:55 linux-2.6.15-rc6-git2-20051223230007
lrwxrwxrwx * 1 root * * root * *31 2006-01-07 09:54 linux-obj -> linux-2.6.15-20060105164408-obj
drwxr-xr-x * 7 root * * root * *67 2005-10-29 04:49 packages

Now, I think I see at least one obvious issue, with the linux-obj, but no guide I saw told me how to make an obj with my newly compiled kernel. Can someone help me polish this up and add in what symlinks I need, and point out what I may be missing?

Aside fromt his, I have rechecked many guides and cannot seem to find what I am missing out on here.

#! · 01-09-2006, 09:09 PM

Ugh.

I'm not even sure where to start here. Need more info:

1. 2.6.15-mm implies that you're building your own kernel using pristine sources downloaded from kernel.org or some other official kernel source mirror. If this is true, then running the "rpm -qa" command is irrelevant, because it's only going to show RPM packages that were installed, not things that were installed from a source tarball. In short, if you ran the "make" command at any time to install *any* software, that software will not be listed in "rpm -qa" output.

2. Symlinks under /usr/src have no bearing on whether or not your kernel will boot. It's there for your convenience when building and installing a new kernel from source. The symlinks under /boot are the ones that are important. Paste in a long listing of that directory and see where you are.

3. Paste your grub configuration file, in its entirety, into a post. Just because grub knows about the kernel doesn't mean its going to boot the kernel.

4. BEFORE YOU DO ANY OF THIS, MAKE DAMNED SURE YOU'VE READ THE README FILE THAT COMES WITH THE KERNEL, OTHERWISE YOU WILL MAKE BONEHEADED MISTAKES. Believe me, I know. I've been using Linux for 8 years, and even after 8 years, you still have to read the readme file. I promise. It helps. The fact that it takes a long time and is very detailed is the reason most people just use whatever kernel comes with their distro.... well.... that and most new users don't even have a clue as to how they would go about measuring the difference in performance between a kernel built from scratch and the stock one supplied by the distribution.

Good luck.

RedShirt · 01-09-2006, 09:41 PM

I did indeed load pristine source of 2.6.15 patched directly from kernel.org. I basically followed this guide this time: http://www.cromwell-intl.com/unix/linux-kernel.html.

I will switch over to my other computer(the linux box) to give you the paste and detailed info. Where would I get the grub info file? I used the SuSE bootloader configuration utility in the kmenu configuration to edit the grub semi-manually.

I will be blunt here. The first few times, I was upgrading to know I could, so I paid a lot more attention to make sure I didn't screw anything up. After that I tried once to go from memory, which didn't work out so well, and then I was just upgrading to try and get ATI drivers to work once I broke all the symlinks and who knows what else such that the wrong source is with the wrong booted kernel, etc. Then I installed the rpms, which worked once, but not when I wanted to get the new 2.6.15 for reasons of NTFS write testing.

Okay, from there, I will get 2 and 3 when I find the grub loader configuration, and I will certainly do #4 and make my own damned install guide so I don't find these semi complete and outdated ones.

syg00 · 01-09-2006, 10:05 PM

Grub should be in /boot/grub/grub.conf - or maybe /boot/grub/menu.lst, depending on the whim of the distro creator. "slocate" on both should give you an idea on where to look.

As for a guide, a 2.6 based one would be more useful. I saw a couple in the "tutorials" button on the banner above - check them and see if you can make one fit.
They're a bit distro specific, but you should be able to decide on one, and use that in future - at least you'll have consistency.

RedShirt · 01-10-2006, 06:16 AM

Code:

Garibaldi:/boot # dir
total 21068
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root    4096 2006-01-07 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x  20 root root    4096 2006-01-08 07:56 ..
-rw-------   1 root root     512 2005-10-29 04:52 backup_mbr
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root       1 2005-10-29 04:45 boot -> .
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   66216 2006-01-05 11:21 config-2.6.15-20060105164408-default
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    4096 2006-01-07 15:55 grub
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root      36 2006-01-07 09:47 initrd -> initrd-2.6.15-20060105164408-default
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 1128270 2005-11-17 19:18 initrd-2.6.14.1
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 1685307 2005-11-11 09:30 initrd-2.6.14.1-default
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 1674472 2006-01-07 09:47 initrd-2.6.15-20060105164408-default
-rw-r--r--   1 root root       0 2005-11-18 23:20 initrd-2.6.x
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   90292 2005-09-09 10:36 memtest.bin
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  139776 2006-01-07 15:55 message
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  128000 2005-10-29 04:52 message.old
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   94830 2006-01-05 11:24 symsets-2.6.15-20060105164408-default.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  301839 2006-01-05 11:24 symtypes-2.6.15-20060105164408-default.gz
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   83631 2006-01-05 11:24 symvers-2.6.15-20060105164408-default.gz
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  848509 2005-11-17 19:17 System.map-2.6.14.1
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  757479 2005-11-10 05:48 System.map-2.6.14.1-default
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  799655 2006-01-07 15:49 System.map-2.6.15
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  694201 2006-01-05 11:09 System.map-2.6.15-20060105164408-default
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root 4745740 2006-01-07 15:50 vmlinux-2.6.15
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 1498059 2006-01-05 11:21 vmlinux-2.6.15-20060105164408-default.gz
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root      37 2006-01-07 09:47 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.15-20060105164408-default
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 2140777 2005-11-17 19:18 vmlinuz-2.6.14.1
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 1468461 2005-11-10 05:49 vmlinuz-2.6.14.1-default
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 1938357 2006-01-07 15:49 vmlinuz-2.6.15
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 1227126 2006-01-05 11:09 vmlinuz-2.6.15-20060105164408-default

All these symlinks certainly look wrong. Pointing to old KOTD RPM versions...

boot/grub/menu.lst

Code:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sat Jan  7 15:55:52 MST 2006

color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/message


title SuSE Enhanced with 2.6.15-mm
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15 root=/dev/hda1 vga=0x31a selinux=0    resume=/dev/hda2  splash=silent showopts
    initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE LINUX 10.0
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 vga=0x31a selinux=0    resume=/dev/hda2  splash=silent showopts
    initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- SUSE LINUX 10.0
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume selinux=0 nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3
    initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: memtest86###
title Memory Test
    kernel (hd0,0)/boot/memtest.bin