I'm a relative newbie trying to get slackware 11 up on my Dell Inspiron 5150. I've been able to install the test26 kernel from the distro, but I need to recompile the kernel for a variety of reasons (it's cool, I need ACPI fully fuctional, etc).

I've tried to compile about 10 times now, using several different guides including the stickies in this forum. I now have a fairly working idea of how to complile, and I'm pretty sure I'm doing everything correctly, including editing /etc/lilo.conf and running /sbin/lilo.

However, every time I compile, after I select my new kernel from Lilo (the old ones always boot fine), I get a blank screen. Nothing at all-it hangs before I get one line of text. Interestingly, the mouse light on my usb optical mouse flashes on briefly before it hangs. I tried to compile without support for framebuffering, but that didn't work either.

The only thing I can think of at this point is that
1). I screwed up the kernel headers by using the /usr/src area for the compile (the 2.6.18.1 readme caustions against this).
2). I need to make another initrd (I use reiserfs) after the new compile (but the computer is hanging way before it finds the initrd).

Any ideas? Thanks!!!!

The kernel headers are part of the source package and won't change unless you deliberately edit them. /usr/src/linux-2.x.x.x as installed from the package is where you would normally do a compile. Are all the pieces in /boot for your compile comparable to the stock files from the distribution? What did you do with .config? Anything special you were trying to set up? It sounds as though the setup for the ramdrive is hosed so the kernel never gets loaded. If you compiled reiserfs in the kernel you won't need initrd otherwise you will. You can mkinitrd from a boot to the distribution kernel as long as you have the modules in /lib/modules with a unique name.

Yes.

Yes, I want to compile a kernel to use with my processor, but more importantly, my laptop runs extremely hot and I need fully-configured ACPI support (which the generic does not provide). Finally, I need to get rid of framebuffer support so I can install the nvidia drivers for my graphics card.

Yeah, I actually figured that out about 1 minute ago. I'm going to try it again w/o the initrd.

I wonder if that's what leaves you a blank screen. Include at least support for VESA framebuffers, nVidia drivers won't collide with it but with rivafb or nvidiafb