[SOLVED] Slackpkg_current kernel + 5.x kernel + win10 in LILO, Bonus change Lilo boot bitmap image

Originally Posted by Scribtor Would I need a second initrd?

Yes, definitely. Initrd images are kernel-specific. If you are going to have alternative kernels, you need alternative initrds to go with them. Make sure you give them different names (see my post above on what happens if you don't!)

How to configure/build/boot this second kernel?

Other people have provided their own answers to this. Here is mine. There are two possible starting points:
1. make defconfig
2. The official configure file in /boot.
If you use the latter, you must copy it into your source tree as .config. I'd prefer to start from there since Pat has configured it to work well in Slackware. Then make menuconfig. But you can remove a lot of the drivers for hardware you don't have, which will speed up the compilation. You might also want to build the ext4 driver right in so that you don't actually need an initrd. Do make sure you include drivers for the hardware you know you have, either as builtins or as modules.

Am I wrong to assume that newer kernels have better configured hardware controllers/drivers and also controllers/drivers for more recent hardware?

I don't know about better configured. They are more likely to contain drivers for recent hardware.

Perhaps it was overlooked or not stated precisely> building 5.x kernels produced no bzImage/vmlinuz files that one could copy.

Then you must have done the build wrong. The bzImage should be in arch/x86_64/boot.

Originally Posted by hazel Yes, definitely. Initrd images are kernel-specific.

Yes and no ;-) You can make one initrd with modules for two ore more kernels ;-)

I assume you'd have to do that by hand. I can't see a way to do it using the mkinitrd script.

Originally Posted by hazel I assume you'd have to do that by hand. I can't see a way to do it using the mkinitrd script.

More than one kernel? It's possible, the -k option accepts a list of versions separated by :.

It's possible to manage one initrd-tree and initrd.gz per kernel, with -o and -s options.