Wow! Amazing guide, nice work Shilo!!! Thanks to your understandable instructions I'm gonna take the plunge and try my first kernel upgrade, hope it all works out! :D

Now that I know how to set up graphical lilo I wish I had installed it to the MBR. (I'm using a 3rd party bootloader called GAG. lilo is installed to my Linux partition.) Is there a way to write it on to the MBR without reinstalling? Those slackware themes are awesome!

I believe that all you need to do is as root. Use the expert mode, if I remember correctly. And make sure that your BIOS Virus protection is disabled, though if it isn't you just won't be writing much to the MBR. Of course if you have a working /etc/lilo.conf, you might want to back that up first. Never had to try to move LILO onto the MBR before, so good luck. You might want to make sure you have something to boot your system with (installation cd #2?), just in case.

For the kernel upgrade, just make sure you have plenty of time. Go through all of the options several times. You might also want to use the command before you start. It will tell you all of the modules you currently have loaded. Make sure you choose to compile all of those as modules in your new kernel, too.

The first time is always hard. By the third time, it's a peice of cake.

i just had a thought the other day - have anyone around here worked with tagfiles ??? cause i read a couple of papers and they talk bout getting the tagfiles from dirs called /a1, n1, ect ect ...

just a thought - really usefull for the linux newbies and the rest of us that re-install on a daily basis - only joking - once in a while when the system is so well "tested" that u need to re-install - ;)

laterz

:D :D :D

tagfiles make it easier to do custom package installs. It takes a bit to setup the tagfiles but once you have them you can make exact copies of your installation on multiple machines.. sort of a manual ghosting.

There is a great quick and dirty tutorial on tagfiles here: http://www.start-linux.com/articles/article_64.php

i have only done this type of setup once to test it out. It does work but i usually do a full install on most of my systems so tagfiles arent neccessary.

Hmmm... well the kernel compiled and boots fine, but I probably should have spent some more time setting the config because my printer, sound, and mouse all stopped working. (Not to mention my framebuffered console!) :( On boot, I get a number of error messages relating to modules that can't be found. (Does rc.modules would need to be reconfigured for a new kernel? I compiled most options into the kernel, not as modules.) I wish there was a way to import the config for the 2.4.22 kernel that ships with Slackware, because I really don't know what options I need, or what works and what doesn't. Guess I'll try again...

try using make oldconfig it will keep your old configuration and build on that.... and you might want to do lsmod and make note of all the modules that are in use and compile those into the new kernel as modules...

Swaret trouble
 

Hey guys and gals,

I seem to be able to get everything in Slack 9.1 up and running just fine according to all I have read here and even got the new kernel going and compiled but then I hit some sort of nasty snag that I probably just don't understand. Everytime I run Swaret it downloads like 1.18gb of files then I do -dep and update -a again (cause you know it's been said sometimes it doesn't get everything). Well the basic result is that kde goes on the haywire and can't find utility files, my "start menu" losses all it's pretty little arrows which extend the program list files and it keeps wanting to reinstall software over and over again...for example replace a i486 file with a i686 file then wants to change it back to a i486 file again. It seems the more I do swaret --upgrade -a the more screwed up my files become. Does this make sense to anyone cause I am really needing some help. Yes, I have been trashing the old files and dropping the .new off the new ones after they appear properly reconfiged in Kedit. Also I keep getting a kio_file error which starts the downward spiral.

Basically, swaret keeps messing up my kde and I am just not a big GNOME fan at the moment....sorry guys. What am I doing wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tried it again using make oldconfig, and I got a kernel panic on boot! I'll use gconfig again and compile the modules correctly... shilo, I hope you're right about the 3rd time! :p

mc_03
hmm.. are you going from a 2.4 to a 2.6 kernel? i should have asked that before suggesting oldconfig.. i noticed a TON of problems using oldconfig if your jumping to 2.6.. sorry about that..


Drakeuser --
i had that happen to me a few times.. one thing i tried that seemed to work ok was after you run --upgrade a the first time and get all your updates and everything works ok.. go back in and edit swaret.conf to exclude the *i486 packages.. this way it wont try to install those again..

not sure if that is the best solution but it has seemed to work for me.

Congratulations Shilo!

Me, just a newbie in linux, a year and a half of linux only computing and just some 6 months of slack...
I just figured out to configure my ess18xx on-board sound card with your help.
Its realy GREAT!
Thank you!
Even the alsa site its not such as good as your tutorial...
Keep on with your excellent job, please :-)

Dan

>go back in and edit swaret.conf to exclude the *i486 packages.. this way it wont try to install those again..<

Thanks System, not sure why I didn't think of that before. lol. Perhaps doing all this while taking pain meds was not so smart. lol...get a little spacey. I also read something about excluding alsa from update in swaret to avoid modules conflicts. Does anyone know anymore about this? I noticed once I installed swaret update -a I had some modules conflicts. Glad to see I am not the only one.

Also, just a little success story for you guys I spent 3 weeks...yes 3 weeks....fighting with windows 2000 to get an ftp site up and running. I was only able to access my network from within my home. Everytime I tried to log in from outside my router I got error after error. I am was honestly shocked and amazed when I read Shilo's web presence portion and after 10 min I had my own email server, and ftp website up and running that I could easily access using my dyndns web address. Windows=user friendly? WHATEVER! lol

*edit*

BTW does that i486 exclude basically look like "EXCLUDE=i486" ? Just want to make sure I comment it correctly. Thanks!

*edit*

Systematic, I was trying to upgrade 2.4.22 to 2.6.5, and I found out that the reason I got the kernel panic was because I didn't have a chance to compile in reiserfs support for my partition.

This 3rd time everything booted up fine and X loaded, but my USB mouse crapped out... didn't work with gpm in console or in X. I didn't have a chance to test other usb devices, but I did have usbcore as a module, and some of the other ones, but I think I left some out... is it safe to just choose every option in the kernel that's not experimental and see what happens? :p

mc_03.. i wouldn't say that it was safe to do that. just out of curiosity, have you been taking notes on what you have compiled in as modules, and what your 2.4 kernel was using as modules. you will need to have those 2.4 modules compiled in as 2.6 modules if you want everything to work correctly.

what kind of errors do you get with your usb mouse plugged in. Also do you have hotplug enabled?. can you post some of your dmesg and see what the errors are..

I recompiled and made sure I had all the usb modules compiled, and now everything works except my framebuffer console is only 800x600, even though lilo has vga=791 for 1024x768... are the VGA modes different for 2.6.x?

shilo, maybe you can add to your guide that instead of doing all the manual copying after you compile the kernel and modules, you can just 'make install' and all the required files will be put into /boot, and the old ones will be backed up. It just makes things quicker and easier for newbies.

mc_03

There are many theories on which way is best to compile the kernel. The method I outline is my personal favorite. I feel that it allows me to maintain more control over the naming of my kernels. It is very handy when you start compiling a bunch of kernels to help learn more. I also think it's a good idea for people that are new to Slackware to learn some fundamental commands, like cp and ln -s. Knowing how to do these things has enabled me to reconfigure my system with ssh, though I really prefer being in front of my computer. One thing I may add is the make mrproper and make clean, since I totally left those out. Those come in handy when doing lots of recompiling. Plus, following my guide, you don't have to worry about gettting rid of the .config file, since a copy was made in /boot. Don't remember if make install does that for you. In summary, I just really don't like the idea of make renaming my files for me. Guess I'm just a little bit of a control freak like that.

I don't believe that the VGA modes are different in 2.6.xx. I am all about trial and error when it comes to those. I just keep commenting/ uncommenting lines until I get a screen that I like. I'm using the same line in 2.6.xx that I used in 2.4.xx.

On a side note, I really gotta get back to editing my site and making additions. Been a long two weeks.