Kernel 2.6.8 Installation and trouble shooting thread                   To return to Howtos click here     This thread discusses the installation of the 2.6.8. kernel and has many contributors. Most information in this thread can help you upgrade to the 2.6.8 kernel on JDS R2 without any problems. Caveat: This kernel is for testing. We do not recommend you use it in a production environment. If you want to assist in providing patches, etc. we welcome your assistance. Dave Southern has completed his work on the 2.6 kernel. This was not something easy to do. If you are willing to test the kernel and report back - you can download it and do the install. It does work! As root in terminal, rpm -e --nodeps modutils As root in terminal, rpm -i module-init-tools-3.0_pre10-35.i386.rpm As root in terminal, rpm -i --force mkinitrd-1.0-197.i386.rpm (if you don't force it, it will complain about conflicting with aaa-base, there is no mkinitrd in the aaa-base) As root in terminal, rpm -i kernel-2.6.8-1.i386.rpm (you will see, some errors stating cp cannot stat, and ldd - that's fine it won't interfere with the installation). Finally you need to edit /boot/grub/menu.1st The entries should similar to this, make sure that you line up the columns exactly, otherwise you'll have some problems. SPECIAL NOTE: Look at the entries for your system because they may differ from the ones below. For example your might have (hd0,2) and /dev/hda3. The main issue is what do you have in your /boot/boot directory. title linux-2.6.8 kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8 root=/dev/hda2 acpi=off hdd=ide-scsi vga=788 initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd-2.6.8 Notice, that the second column is further to the left than the first and third. Now the fun part, reboot, and give it a whirl. http://www.jdshelp.org/rpms/mkinitrd-1.0-197.i386.rpm http://www.jdshelp.org/rpms/module-init-tools-3.0_pre10-35.i 386.rpm http://www.jdshelp.org/rpms/kernel-2.6.8-1.i386.rpm I'll put a howto up on the community site as soon as we hear back from some testers. Also, anyone who has anything to add, please provide us comments. if you have code to contribute, after you provide the secret hand shake, send you information to webmaster@jdshelp.org Be especially careful and read Dave's caveate below. In case I didn't mention it, this is not supported by Sun. It's something the community web site team has undertaken -- mostly Dave. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello Everyone, A couple of points I'd like to make since I've been playing around with this Kernel. First if you upgrade the mkinitrd to use the 2.6 kernel, anytime there is a further update on the 2.4 kernel you will end up having to manually add it to grub. It doesn't always play well with YaST, the two examples that come to mind are my ethernet card and sound card. I have to modprobe to load my module for my eth0, and I still am playing with getting my sound to work (both of them were built as modules in the build). Dave S. P.S. a couple of other things I forgot to point out, If you install the new module-init-tools, and mkinitrd package, You can compile and make a 2.6 kernel from source. The most critical point I can make, if you do that, is to use the following command to make the initrd, just change the versions. mkinitrd -k bzimage-2.6.8 -i initrd-2.6.8 Also, ensure that when you make config that you that you choose yes for the frame buffer, otherwise you'll get a black screen. And finally, some people have reported problems booting the 2.6 kernel as it wouldn't recognize their hard drives. The solution has been to use the following command to find your major and minor number for your harddrive, and replace them instead of the usual hda: ls -l /dev/hda2 (or wherever it's located) this will show something like this: brbw-rw---1 root disk 3, 2 Sep 7 23:30 /dev/hda2 therefore the major# is 3 and the minor# is 2 change these to hexidecimal and pad to a two diget# eg 3,2 becomes 0302 - this is your hexidecimal form of the block device. now you place that in place of root=/dev/hda2 so that it becomes: root=0302 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note - in order to get my system to boot up - I needed to use vmlinuz in the menu.1st file. So, please read the menu.1st carefully. Also, here's the errors I received when I installed the kernel but they made no difference. Root device: /dev/hda3 (mounted on / as reiserfs) Module list: cdrom ide-cd reiserfs ide-scsi Kernel image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8 Initrd image: /boot/initrd-2.6.8 cp: cannot stat `/sbin/udev': No such file or directory cp: cannot stat `/sbin/udevinfo.static': No such file or directory cp: cannot stat `/sbin/udevstart': No such file or directory cp: cannot stat `/sbin/scsi_id': No such file or directory cp: cannot stat `/sbin/udev.*.sh': No such file or directory cp: cannot stat `/etc/udev/*': No such file or directory Shared libs: /usr/bin/ldd: line 1: /sbin/insmod.static.old: No such file or directory ldd: /sbin/udev: No such file or directory ldd: /sbin/udevinfo.static: No such file or directory ldd: /sbin/udevstart: No such file or directory ldd: /sbin/scsi_id: No such file or directory ldd: /sbin/udev.*.sh: No such file or directory lib/ld-2.2.5.so lib/libc.so.6 Modules: kernel/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.ko kernel/drivers/ide/ide-cd.ko kernel/fs/reiserfs/reiserfs.ko kernel/drivers/scsi/ide-scsi.ko Bootsplash: disabled for resolution 1024x768 execution of kernel-2.6.8-1 script failed, exit status 1 again - these error messages did not appear to make any difference. BTW - the kernel is fast! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One quick note about my network card. My P4 uses a motherboard with Intel 845 chipset. But for some reason, it has a realtek 8139 network card. I had to do a modprobe 8139too and then do Launch->Preference->System->Network Settings->Network card. I then just clicked to check the settings, and clicked next and the network turned on. I looked at /etc/module.conf and the 8139too module was listed in the file. That's something to look into. Like Dave said, it seems worth it and with your help, we'll get all the quirks out. Thanks in advance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- both kernels - 2.4.19 and 2.6.8 are installed. The bootsplash still works when I booted up into the 2.4.19 kernel but not the 2.6.8 (I'm assuming by bootsplash you mean the splashscreen used during the bootup -not the grub boot menu). Haven't tried hibernate/swsup. It's defintely a performance increase - it really runs. The amount of work required to do this BTW was unbelievable. We should all give Dave a big thanks!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just an update on the sound problem, It works after doing a modprobe snd-es1371 (my sound card), and adjusting the volume control. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ust a quick note: If you boot up and do not have a network, do modprobe on your network card. That goes for each time you boot up. To find your network card module: Launch->Preferences->System->Hardware->Hardware Information Let it scan (takes a little time -not much) You'll get a list of hardware -- scroll down to "network Card" click on the + sign Then scroll to drivers click the + sign click on modules, then modules again and you'll see the module name It will say modprobe sis900 (for example). That's what you execute at the command line as superuser (su) or root -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Kernel 2.6.8 is working extremely fast ... Good work, thanks alot..... You are right to stress the following two points: 1. modify your /boot/grub/menu.lst: important seems to be: the root-partition should NOT be in this form: root=/dev/hda9, but: root=0309 (instead of 9 use your partition number). 2. network card: I have to load it anew after every boot. Question: Is there a way to include the nic so that it gets loaded automatically? Thanks in advance for your help ! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- after i went up to kernel 2.6 i had the same problem.(The kernel works great, but we need the soundcard driver for via (ac'97) :-) It is possible to let the driver from kernel 2.4.19 work also for the 2.6??? try this with your network card goto /etc/init.d/network and edit (put in the following) above => echo Setting up network interfaces: echo Modul laden: modprobe via-rhine <= this is my network card, put in yours echo Setting up network interfaces: after i edit it, the network starts with bootup. maybe it helps. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, that was it !! Thank you for the hint. (Übrigens als Deutsche können wir auch so miteinander sprechen) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am using a via-rhine too, and now ALL IS working PERFECTLY. I have a multi-boot system and am testing different Linux-Systems for compatibility ... (FC1, FC2, Redhat 9, SuSE, Mandrake 10, Knoppix, Xandros 1 and 2 and so on) hanks for the contribution Stefan. You may want to check http://www.gcclinux.com/linux/ to see if these JDS people have any information on how to get your card to work with Looking Glass. I'm also happy you found the kernel working fast. I'm adding something everyday too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- after i went up to kernel 2.6 i had the same problem.(The kernel works great, but we need the soundcard driver for via (ac'97) :-) It is possible to let the driver from kernel 2.4.19 work also for the 2.6??? try this with your network card goto /etc/init.d/network and edit (put in the following) above => echo Setting up network interfaces: echo Modul laden: modprobe via-rhine <= this is my network card, put in yours echo Setting up network interfaces: after i edit it, the network starts with bootup. maybe it helps. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I edited the same file in English right above echo Setting up network interfaces: I added : echo Module load modprobe 8139too That's for my Realtek ethernet. I lined up the next, just in case and rebooted. The network driver loaded perfectly on boot. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to uninstall the kernel and go back to the original Your original kernel is still installed. If you don't want to use the 2.6.8, remove the entries from it in /boot/grub/menu.1st. You can download kernel 2.4 upgrades and install them buy hand. rpm -e --nodeps mkinitrd-1.0-197.i386.rpm rpm -e --nodeps module-init-tools-3.0_pre10-35.i386.rpm then install the original versions of mkinitrd and modutils off the JDS disks.