Hi people,

I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction to getting a kernel compiled for a dual pentium setup. I just installed slackware 10.2 using the scsi2.i kernel but it only supported 1 of the processors.

Any ideas?

Mandrake works, but whats the point in that.

On the first install CD the kernels such as scsi2.i are stored in a directory. In that same directory are the configure scripts used to make those kernels. if you drop the configure script from the scsi2.i directory into /usr/src/linux as .configure you can modify it to turn on multiprocessor support and then recompile. (make menuconfig ; make bzImage ; make modules ; make modules_install, etc) If you are new to building a new kernel, check out the stickies in this Slackware forum.

Thanks Darin,

I'll take a look at the stickies in the forum, I can recompile the slackware kernel from my current Mandrake install can't I? I think it's pretty complete.

enable SMP option.

Okay. So I dropped the scsi2 script into /usr/src/linux as .configure and ran through the whole compile process, but ofcourse the script should have been in there as .config so it just compiled some massive bullcrap kernel.

Then I started again, dropped the script in as .config and proceded with

make menuconfig

Where I switched the CPU to Classic Pentium and enabled SMP, then proceded with:

make dep
make clean
make bzImage
make
make install
make modules
make modules_install

So now I have a multiprocessor kernel. great. BUT on bootup device /snd/ now does not exist. the error I get at boot up is "modprobe: Cant locate module snd-sb16" - it has an old isa sb16 in it.

So! how do I get my sound device back?

Also if I've installed from .config configuration will anything else be missing that the installer usually adds?

Btw, make modules takes a [bleep]ing day!

Go thru the whole menuconfig and get rid of things you know you don't have, like other sound modules. I use the OSS sb module for that kind of sound card.

does this mean I have to re-make everything? or just some specific bits? - surely if the kernel that I booted off and installed off had it correct I shouldn't have to wait another day whilst things get made again should I?

The point of removing all the stuff you don't need is so that you can spend only half or a quarter of the day instead of a full day compiling. I always do a make clean before I build a kernel, but it may not be necessary.

Any pointers on what other things I have to look at in make menuconfig would be appreciated too, i.e. my network card still works so I guess its not all devices that need to be checked up on in this bit???

okay assume I'm only moderately retarded and I can associate vaguely which bits I need and don't, how do I know if I should really be excluding them?

Do you have a SoundBlaster 16? or use APM not ACPI? Are there drivers being compiled for things you don't have in your system? You don't need drivers and support for stuff that isn't in your system. Makes the kernel faster when running too.

Okay so if I take out all the stuff I don't need it makes a smaller kernel. But how does this resolve the fact I have no snd device?

For that, I recommended using the OSS driver instead of ALSA, even if it is "deprecated".

Yeah I stumbled upon the OSS drivers in the sound menu, I've set the possible cards to <M>.

I've also cleared a huge ammount of things this machine definately will never have.

When I originally installed slack I did alsaconf to setup my soundcard - and it worked fine. But what do I do if it ends up set up as OSS - ossconf?

Well I'm going to go for it now, thanks for the help so far. I guess only time will tell, same time tomorrow Tuxdev?

OSS modules are activated in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules