Compiling 2.6.16.62 kernel on Slackware 12.0 for the VMware Server 1.x platform

r_mosaic_g · 12-06-2008, 09:05 PM

Forgive me for that I'm quite old-school. The story began like this: once I installed slackware 12.1 inside VMware Server, a kernel panic happened during the installation (I've never met this with slackware 10.2 through 12.0). Also with a successful installation of it I couldn't configure the scim in slackware 12.1 successfully to have table-based IMEs (I configured scim successfully on slackware 12.0 which doesn't include scim). Thus I decided to go back a stage, to slackware 12.0. Also for what would be interesting, as slackware 12.0 uses linux-2.6.21.5, I'm going to try out Adrian Bunk's stable version 2.6.16.62 kernel (the 2.6.16 series has many sub-versions, so you can pick one as you like; Adrian Bunk is now maintaining 2.6.27 series). This time I did it in VMware Server 1.06 and VMware ESXi Server 3.5. The process went a little bit unsuccessful at first because of the SCSI hard disk is not recognized, and in the end solved. The successful process went as follows:

- I used /dev/sda as the SCSI virtual hard disk, and /dev/sda1 is the root
partition
- backup /boot and /lib/modules (in case the system cannot boot, the slackware
CD can be used to rescue)
- extract linux-2.6.16.62.tar.bz2 to ~/linux (it will create linux-2.6.16.62 subdirectory under ~/linux)
- cd to ~/linux/linux-2.6.16.62 make mrproper
- copy /usr/src/linux-2.6.21.5/.config to ~/linux/linux-2.6.16.62/
- make menuconfig
- make a copy of /usr/src/linux-2.6.21.5 to ~/linux/linux-2.6.21.5 and also
"make mrproper" and copy the .config file and "make menuconfig"
- `lspci` should show SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic
53c1030 PCI-X Fusion-MPT Dual Ultra320 SCSI (rev 01); this means we need
Fusion MPI driver (supports 53c1030); I don't know whether LSI MegaRAID is
needed, but I also added it for safety
- compare the 2.6.21 and 2.6.16 configurations and merge 2.6.21 items to
appropriate 2.6.16 items, specifically, the IDE/SCSI/SATA part
- save config and make
- make install
- make modules_install
- cd to /boot
- mkinitrd -c -m ext3:mptbase:mptspi:mptscsih:mptctl:megaraid:megaraid_mm -f ext3 -r /dev/sda1 -k 2.6.16.62-smp
- edit lilo.conf to include the initrd (according to man mkinitrd)
- run lilo
- reboot

Have fun!

T3slider · 12-06-2008, 10:21 PM

From CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT for Slackware 12.0:

Code:

1. Install a 2.6.18 or later kernel

From RELEASE_NOTES for Slackware 12.0:

Code:

About the only things to mention here are that Slackware now
requires a recent 2.6.x kernel (I believe 2.6.18 is a minimum), but
as usual unless your needs are specific you're probably better off
running the included kernels that we've tested things against.
The best kernel to run (even on a one CPU/core machine) is the generic
SMP one, but that needs an initrd, so be sure to read the instructions
in /boot after installing with a huge* kernel if you plan to switch.
Since the initrd has been around since Slackware 11.0, hopefully most
Slackware users can take on this task easily and will not be "shocked
and appalled".

I have a feeling that a few utilities (HAL maybe?) will not work properly with your 2.6.16.x kernel.

r_mosaic_g · 12-06-2008, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T3slider

From CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT for Slackware 12.0:
I have a feeling that a few utilities (HAL maybe?) will not work properly with your 2.6.16.x kernel.

Thanks for this information. I'll remember to check the documentation utilities when I use them.