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Debian linux kernel

H

horatiub

Member
I have a few questions regarding debian, here is the deal:

The kernel that I compiled was 2.4.8 and I choose the unstable version for upgrading the packages. After that, I kep getting errors, saying that I need kernel 2.6.8 or higher for certain things to work. Now my question is: should I re-compile the kernel to 2.6.11 or I should start from scratch with everything? I'm not affraid to format the hard drives and start partioning again. Also, I choose the lilo boot instead of Grub, but later I found out that I should've chosen Grub.

And as I was typing this, I tried to upgrade the kernel but I keep getting errors when I run make menuconfig. Could you guys please post here the whole path that I have to follow? Can you give me some instructions step by step?

Thank you!
 
Are you using an unstable kernel with a stable userland? If so, that's probably a bad thing. Make sure everything is in sync. Do an update, or upgrade, or whatever apt calls it.
 
Just install one of the pre-packaged kernels aviable from Debian unstable.

For Debian unstable 2.4 series kernels are pretty depreciated.. if you want to run 2.4 you should run debian stable. There are a lot of things like udev and sysfs that Debian uses in unstable and you need 2.6 series for..

The pre-compiled kernel packages from Debian are just fine... just make sure that after you installed the pre-compiled kernel you have a entry for your last known good working kernel in your lilo.conf or grub menu.lst or whatever, just incase. Otherwise you'd need to have a boot cd like knoppix or whatnot if something goes wrong.
 
ok, what I did first was downloaded a stable boot up CD from debian.org, which was 2.4 I think. Then I updated all the packages from the stable servers. Later on, I realized that the stable version have less software available and I change the config file to download from unstable. And there is where everything got screwed up.

I'm trying to find a boot up CD with 2.6 unstable versions, but I can't seem to find them.

So, basically, if i understood right, I should start from the beginning with unstable and updated it from there. Btw, should I be using Lilo or Grub? What do you guys suggest?

and one more thing: how do I add the last known good working kernel in lilo or grub? What do I have to type?
 
in gentoo I would
make sure kernel source is installed (ls /usr/src)
cd /usr/src/linux (or linux-XXXVERSION STUFF)
make menuconfig

With Deb, I would think get a precompiled kernel.

As far a bootloaders, I use grub, but that is what I know and why I use it. I have heard lilo is more configurable.
 
so, how do I start basically? I download the minimal Boot CD, which I think it's only the stable one, then choose the servers and everything, chance the source list to unstable and then update and upgrade? I'm just confused. I remembered that a few days ago, I downloaded the minimal Boot stable, but that one installed the 2.4.20 or something like that. Still no 2.6.

 
Sarge defaults to 2.4 still, but 2.6 is an option. I think you need to type linux26 at the boot prompt.

If you really want unstable you should install a minimal sarge, before doing any major configuration changed edit /etc/apt/sources.list and change stable to unstable, run 'apt-get update' then 'apt-get dist-upgrade'. Then you can begin installing bigger things like X.
 
ya..

that makes the most sense if you want to upgrade from scratch to unstable.

At installer time you boot up it will prompt for a kernel name. If you press enter it will default to just 'linux' which will use the default linux 2.4.x kernel for the sarge install. If you type linux26 at that prompt then it will have you install a 2.6 series kernel by default.

Then, like Nothinman said, do a minimal install then update the sources to unstable sources. Then do 'apt-get update' and a 'apt-get dist-upgrade' to get the system updated to unstable.

Then if you want you can re-run 'tasksel' command to select 'desktop' or whatnot to get X installed with Gnome, I beleive. That way you can avoid some of the transition stuff from xfree86 to x.org and just go straight to x.org.
 
thank you for your help, I followed the instructions and installed it again.

But, this time I'm having a problem with GNOME. It keeps locking up, I start GNOME, open a browser or an utility and after few minutes it just locks up. I can still move the mouse around , but nothing happens. Btw, I'm running Linux on a Xeon processor 500MHZ with 128mb ram.

Maybe the ram is too low? I had installed GNOME earlier on the same box, and it worked perfect
 
hmm, I'll give XFCE a try.

btw, I did some reading on the web, and alot of people are getting constant freezes when using GNOME because of a sound application. When my PC boots up and I log into Gnome, I get an error saying No Volume control/sound sever. I'm still trying to find out what should I do
 
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