[SOLVED] A new Slackware use need help about kernel and initrd

Nitrogen1 · 09-14-2013, 09:52 AM

Hello guys!
First of all I apologize for my bad English, but now come to my questions.
I'm new to linux and I recently installed slackware64 14.0 on my laptop. I followed the slackbook at www.slackbook.com and the documentation at docs.slackware.com to configure what i can, but I would like to understand a few things about the kernel and the initrd. After creating the initrd with the utility mkinitrd_command_generator.sh and started the generic kernel, now I want to understand the function of the initrd and when i need to recreate it. For example, if I upgrade my kernel to a new version I have to recreate the initrd? Or I can use the same?
About to the kernel, if I want to compile the kernel using only the necessary modules for my hardware where should I start? I know that the process of compiling the kernel is more or less in this manner http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8869931/compiling-the-2-6-0-kernel-on-slackware and that there are different ways to configure the kernel as the "config file" or "xconfig" "menuconfig" but how do I find during this process the modules strictly necessary?

Thanks in advance for your answers and i will appreciate any links, HowTo or resource that can help me

jmccue · 09-15-2013, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nitrogen1

Hello guys!
First of all I apologize for my bad English, but now come to my questions.

Your English seems great to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nitrogen1

For example, if I upgrade my kernel to a new version I have to recreate the initrd? Or I can use the same?

You should recreate a new initrd and reinstall lilo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nitrogen1

About to the kernel, if I want to compile the kernel using only the necessary modules for my hardware where should I start?

Sorry, I cannot help you here, have not had to compile a kernel for ages and forgot how. This guide (alien bob's site) may be helpful.

John

kikinovak · 09-15-2013, 10:38 AM

I don't know if you speak French, but I've written a few HOWTOs on the subject.

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/L...rnel-HOWTO.txt

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/L...LILO-HOWTO.txt

Didier Spaier · 09-15-2013, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nitrogen1

if I want to compile the kernel using only the necessary modules for my hardware where should I start?

Don't do that, it's useless as you won't see any performance increase.
You still want to do that? Follow Alien BOB's guide as suggested by jmccue, but after "make oldconfig" run "make localmodconfig". This will remove all modules not currently loaded, so plug-in all your removable devices before, otherwise you won't have support for them. If you don't have enough slots (e.g. USB ports), you can unplug a device then plug-in another, provided each device stays plugged-in in at least 30 seconds so that the kernel have enough time to load modules it needs. If for some reason a module doesn't get automatically loaded you will have to "modprobe" it manually instead.

yenn · 09-15-2013, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nitrogen1

Hello guys!
[...] now I want to understand the function of the initrd and when i need to recreate it. For example, if I upgrade my kernel to a new version I have to recreate the initrd? Or I can use the same?

Purpose of initrd is to include as many kernel modules and utilities, which are not included in kernel itself, as needed to boot system. Huge kernel includes almost everything and it's capable of booting by itself most of the time, while generic kernel needs initrd to boot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmccue

You should recreate a new initrd and reinstall lilo.

I believe it's a typo. You only need to run lilo to update MBR, not reinstall, after every change with kernel or initrd.

Didier Spaier · 09-15-2013, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kikinovak

I don't know if you speak French, but I've written a few HOWTOs on the subject.

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/L...rnel-HOWTO.txt

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/L...LILO-HOWTO.txt

Sorry Nitrogen1, this is clearly off topic...

Nicolas, loading your files in Firefox, one was recognized as Windows-1252 and the other one as UTF-8, though both be encoded in ISO-8859-1 (as set in vim and confirmed by iconv here). There is nothing we can actually do about that (probing the encoding of a file is too tricky), but I'd suggest you always use UTF-8. As a reminder, converting an existing file is just a matter of:

Code:

iconv -f ISO8859-1 -t UTF-8 -o filename.utf8 filename
mv filename.utf8 filename

I did that with your files and that doesn't increase their size much.

Only my

of course

PS Your HOW-TOs are well written, as usual.