Well I did not choose the default kernel which is "bare.i" I do believe. I choose the "bareacpi.i" due to the fact I need acpi. I experimented with both of the 2.6 kernel installs off the DVD and they had all kinds of problems for me

This kernel works fine and all, and I know acpi is installed because my battery monitor dockapp won't work unless acpi is installed and active; and it works. Other than the severe lack of battery life, i'm perfectly satisfied with the current kernel (which is 2.4.33 I believe), and thus the current system. The only problems i've had thus far is getting GNUstep to compile correctly, and k3b keeps complaining about missing some "libsamplerate0", and I wanted to compile InterfaceWM and it failed some reason I can't figure out; and that's it. Simple problems that are a slight annoyance, but nothing real important to my use and love of the system. Everything else works fine. I would think a brand spanking new out of the box laptop could get something more than 45min - 1hr battery life though. If it's a power management issue of some sort (which is a subject I know nothing of linux wise), then perhaps a kernel recompile with appropiate options would help. And of course, i'm using common sense, like not keeping the brightness any higher than need be, etc.

Knowing my situation, i'm up for you fella's suggestion. I hate to take down my system and risk ruining it and having start over by trying to recompile the whole thing, because i've gotten all the softwares I want built and running and everything as I want it. Still though, after using Debian for so so long, I don't know if it's the change or what but i'm still glad I switched to Slackware. I can't help but totally love this distro, and I don't believe being a reverend in the Church of The Subgenius has anything to do with it. Oh yeah, my site is
www.revqueue.com
if you're bored or interested in my goofiness.
(which by the way, looks fine in any browser on windows or a mac, but linux browsers seem to have things a little messed up. I don't know a thing of html, so the wysiwyg creator I used is probably the cause).

But Anyway like I said, if you strongly suggest it's beneficial to recompile, i'll give it a shot, if not, i'm fine where I am. Thank you yet again.

If you check the config file for that kernel I would be willing to bet that not all of the acpi options you need have been compiled in. While it does have some acpi options, it obviously doesn't have all of them or you wouldn't be having this problem.

You'll especially want to look at the specific laptop options, cpu frequency scaling, etc.

Ok. I went thru and did the kernel compile. I read everything in menuconfig carefully to make sure I didn't take out anything I would need, and anything I was feeling questionable over I left alone. Anyway, the compile seemed to go fine, but the file it output is named "vmlinux". I renamed and added my old system to lilo with no probs, but lilo complains
Fatal: Kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6 is too big.

I wish I understood that, because as much un-needed crap as I took out, I would think it would be smaller! Anyway, suggestions?

So what's up, solved now?
You did run /sbin/lilo before reboot right? If you didn't just fire up the install disk, mount your partition and do it.
I don't get the It should be bzImage, located in /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage (usually).
Care to say the steps you took to compile your kernel? Seems you're only missing some simple detail.
Nice site

Actually no, i've just stuck with plugging in when possible and haven't messed much with re-building; I got mixed up with masonm's direction a little, but got it straight and went thru it. I took out as much "what seemed" non-essential modules and such as I could. I can't believe how complex that process is, there's so, so much stuff in there I wasn't familiar with, but plenty that I was too. I got thru it, got a kernel built and was even able to boot into it, however, It displayed a few errors I had no idea what meant, and when I got logged in and started X, my mouse wasn't working .

I tried reading over the kernel output from bootup, but there was to much going on and I think I took out things in places I shouldn't have, and I know probably left in way more than was necessary.

I deleted the kernel and am back to using "bareacpi.i" for now. I'm otherwise just slacking off; I intended at some point on going thru it all again, but I took my time and carefully read most of the descriptions of various modules and options; it makes me feel a little aggrivated to want to go thru all that again. If you have any suggestions on things that 'need' to be left in; feel free to let me know. Outside of filesystems support, the obvious (my acpi needs), I didn't know what to do.

When you installed Slack 11 you were given a choice of kernels to use. Perhaps you should try bareacpi.i. This has acpi already built into the kernel, no need to compile your own if you dont want.

I use this kernel on my Panasonic CF T1 and it works just fine.

BashTin

I also come from debian, if you check my 1st post it's been almost a year since i switched to Slacky.
I think you've done a great move, be patient and keep at it. If you wanna be a real Slacker keep practicing those recompiles and enjoy rolling your own packages. Here's what works for me (mostly taken from Shilo's site)
* Backup everything + patience + no fear
* Download latest kernel from http://kernel.org/ (today it's http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v...6.19.1.tar.bz2)
* su to become root and mv linux-2.6.19.1.tar.bz2 /usr/src
* cd to /usr/src and: tar -xvjf linux-2.6.19.1.tar.bz2
* remove old symlink: rm linux
* make a new symlink: ln -s linux-2.6.19.1 linux
* use a previous working kernel config: cp /boot/config-2.6.18 /usr/src/linux
* cd to /usr/src/linux and mv config-2.6.18 .config (watch "." now it's a hidden file)
* make oldconfig
* answer questions y,m(odule),n,? to read about options
* make all (wait some time)
* make modules && make modules_install (wait some time)
* cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.19.1 (call it anyway you want)
* cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.19.1
* cp .config /boot/config-2.6.19.1
* cd to /boot and remove old symlinks: rm config vmlinuz System.map
* Make new symlinks: ln -s System.map-2.6.19.1 System.map same for ln -s config-2.6.19.1 config and ln -s vmlinuz-2.6.19.1 vmlinuz
* You´re done, edit /etc/lilo.conf if needed (maybe take a look at /boot/README.initrd last section) and /sbin/lilo ...done. Reboot

Some notes: If you're using nvidia edit /etc/inittab to boot to runlevel 3 as you will need to reinstall the driver. Ati i got no clue
You can keep tweaking a little every week typing make menuconfig from /usr/src/linux till you get rid of unused things and experiment, just remember to keep old configs around and remember you can boot to your previous kernel pointing the symlinks to them and /sbin/lilo after (usually this is done booting from install cd as it says on boot screen)
You can try compiling your kernel using other configs, like http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub...eacpi.i/config
Warning: not a good idea to use a 2.4 kernel config to compile a 2.6
I'm sure there are lots of typos and some mistakes since it's getting late, i'll try to fix/edit them later, Hope it helps a bit and you some have fun, hang around, Slackers on this forum are great and very knowledgeable

Thanks for the encouragement and info manny. I intend very much to stick with it because I rather enjoy using it. It's not helpful though that I know diddly-squat about writing scripts and the such, because i'd love to make packages for "linuxpackages.net". That's a damn helpful site is it not? It's helped quite a bit in at least getting things like the Adobe Reader and Flash installed correctly.

And BashTin; that is what i'm using. I did that when I first installed. I guess this laptop just doesn't have a very long battery life. Like i'd said earlier, I would think I could get a little more than an hour or so battery life, but it's just not going to happen. ACPI inits correctly though, so I know the kernel is using that power management. Oh well.


I need to build GNUstep yet; I can't live too happily without it, but anyway,

I don't enjoy the kernel compile process at all. But i've made a cheat-sheet of your instruction set Manny and will just mess with it until everything works. (And yeah, sad to say i'm rollin' with ATI. Don't know. 3D Accel. with this blased Radeon Xpress 200M just ain't happening. I even used their prop. driver. Doesn't matter though, dosbox and zsnes run so I'm happy Lol. Anyway, thank you again. Take care.

Yup, linuxpackages.net is nice, tho i sometimes prefer http://www.slacky.it/ (in italian, but downloads is written in english Try dvd:rip for example. (browse 11.0 packages)
linuxpackages.net has some nice tutorials btw. As for a starters tutorial about scripts i like Rute's
There's an Ati thread somewhere, just use <search>
Cya around!

Ok Manny. I followed your exact directions.
When I installed Slack initially, it asked what res I wanted my console. I chose 1024x768x256
It would appear after going thru the kernel compile process you listed for me, that the system boots, but the screen is completely blank. If I wait for a minute or two, I type like i'm at the login prompt (which I appear to be), then startx and X comes up. Somehow after the recompile i've lost my screen; my kernel is invisible lol. What do I do??

Hey! nice to see you compiling custom kernels!
If you need to change your console fonts just run pkgtool->setup->setconsolefont.
As for the black screen you probably left out devicedrivers->graphicssupport->support for frame buffer devices and vesa vga graphics support. (i have both).
Your kernel should be in /boot or /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage.
You can always boot your previous kernel if you point the symlinks again to them from /boot: ln -s previouskernel vmlinuz, ln -s previousSystem.map System.map (don't forget to /sbin/lilo to update it).
You also need to reinstall your graphics driver again. If it's an Nvidia just ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1...blah again. It helps if you boot to run level 3 editing /etc/inittab and the back to 4 when done.
Hope it makes sense :P

Well, I hopped in and did another compilation. I included all the stuff you said plus there was something in there about the radeon which so happens to be my card so I compiled it in too. I can now only see my console if I set my lilo conf line at "vga=normal". Any kind of higher res makes my console remain invisible. I've also noticed that when dhcpcd loads up, it says something about Sciocsifflags (something like that) missing a file?

I really and truly am more concerned now about just getting this evil bcm4318 wireless card up and working. I've ascertained that the stock bareacpi.i works fine for me. The battery life of the laptop just sucks. Period. I'm not finding any useful reason for myself to change kernels in the first place. Just can't win for losin' I suppose.

I've got slack 11 on my laptop (Inspiron 5150). It basically didn't work until I did the following. I would recommend you do the same:
-Build a new kernel. See the sticky at this thread. (also, if you install the test26 kernel from the slack disc, you may solve your batter problems, and your packages will be built for i486 instead of i386). During the build:
-enable ACPI. Since you're already there, pay very careful attention to the processor type options. My laptop has a very specific configuration required to get the processor to perform correctly vis-a-vis the power source.
-If you use KDE, go to the control center and configure your battery options. The very last tab gives you an easy way to make KDE your ACPI helper application, which I recommend.