Upgrading to 12: Kernel Config Question
 

Hi. This is my first post, but I've been a lurker for years, and I'm not new to Slackware. I just wonder about the upgrade from Slackware 11 to 12. It says you need an initrd so that the generic kernel will understand your fs (mine's reiserfs).

I have 2 parts to this question.

1.
But let's say after I do this and get Slack 12 running fine. Then what if I configure my kernel myself, using make menuconfig, then include (built-in) the support for reiserfs and boot it up, then do I still need initrd?

2.
And if I upgrade the kernel to 2.6.22.x or whatever the latest one is, myself, BEFORE upgrading to Slack 12, do I even need to worry about the kernel at all? (Current Kernel is 2.6.20.7)


Thanks.

If you configure the kernel yourself to include your file-system (and any other necessary bits and pieces), then you won't need the initrd. That applies for both cases you mention - adding your own kernel after the upgrade or before it.

I haven't done it the second way, so maybe someone else will post any gotchas they found...

Ah, thanks Steve. Just for my own knowledge, is there any such thing like Slackware 11 (or some older version) not supporting the newest kernel? Or the converse -- an older kernel not running on a newer distribution? Maybe there are resources about that somewhere online about how kernel and distro versions are theoretically meant to work vs. how they work in practice.

If 11 can work just fine with 2.6.x, I can't imagine serious issues upgrading the kernel first and then the packages.

Any thoughts..?


Thanks.

I have a Slackware 11.0 box here running the same kernel (2.6.23.1) as the Slackware 12.0 box sitting beside it so you shouldn't have any problems that way.

As far as kernel age goes, Slackware 11.0 runs with 2.4 and 2.6 series kernels, but I don't know about 2.2 or earlier kernels. Slackware 12.0 uses 2.6 by default so I expect it would be difficult to get it running with 2.4 or earlier kernels.