'Aggressive' Kernel ?

[Rick Altherr]

A quick explaination.  One of our team members done a nice job of applying 
patches to the kernel we use.  By default it applies rather simple patches 
that add either functionality or a bugfix.  He also makes available an 
"aggressive" patchset that adds more features but is more experimental and 
may cause problems.

Now, to rebuild your kernel, make sure you run "lin linux" and select to 
configure your kernel.  That will properly patch the kernel and then run the 
kernel configuration tool.  After that, the kernel will be built, installed, 
and lilo (or grub) will be updated with the new information.  Reboot and it 
should just work.

Also, you _shouldn't_ need a 1GB swapfile anymore.  That was from a few 
revisions ago and is no longer absolutely necessary.  A normal sized swapfile 
(or partition, and yes, you can share a swap partition between distros) can 
be used now.

I'm assuming the problems you are having with your NIC have to do with not 
using lin to build your kernel.  Give the procedure I stated above a try, and 
let us know if you are having problems still.

Rick
(aka kc8apf)


On Sunday 16 February 2003 07:19 pm, Keith Adney wrote:
> Hi. A brief background to give all an idea of where I'm at, and I'll
> try to be less verbose in the future. I'll also try and keep to one
> topic per post when possible, but at this stage I'm not really sure
> what is interacting with what.
>
> I've been fooling with computers since 1977, was VP of MIS for a
> large transportation company (mainframe) for a decade (the 1980s
> decade); I've probably written close to 100K lines of COBOL in my
> life. I quite literally used to write COBOL in my dreams. I'm a
> hi-time Windows user; I've been fooling with Linux for about a year
> now, mainly Mandrake, although I've played with about 3 or 4 other
> distros, as well. Of course, I've been dual-booting.
>
> About 3 weeks ago I tried the "don't boot Windows for a month" test
> after Bill Gates ate 2 wks worth of email AGAIN. I guess I failed;
> I couldn't go a month. I removed the Windows partition about a week
> ago.  ;)
>
> I now have Mandrake 9.0 installed as my 'primary' O/S (running it to
> write this). I researched distros pretty heavily, and it appears
> that the SGL branch has exactly the characteristics I'm looking for
> in a Linux distro, and that Lunar is the least politically infected
> fork of the SGL branch (PLEASE correct me if Im wrong here). I hope
> Lunar will soon be my primary O/S.
>
> Enough of that.
>
> I have a 350 MHz P2 w/448MB mem, 10GB HD, no-name GeoForce2 MX400
> video, local LAN w/3 other stations, including my laptop, behind a
> Mandrake SNF firewall to a cable modem (a terrific firewall using a
> 60MHz P1 w/32MB ;). I've given Lunar a 1-cylinder boot partition
> (1st cyl is Mandrake /boot at hda1; 2nd is Lunar /boot at hda2,
> Mandrake root is hda5, Lunar has a single root partition of about
> 4GB at hda6, and yes I realize that's tight). I configured a 1GB
> SWAPFILE in the root partition. I also have a 1.5GB HD; I'm using
> 256MB for the Mandrake swap partition and the rest is a
> /home/shared partition for common storage w/Mandrake. If anyone
> thinks its a better way I could always put the swapfile on that
> drive (but I assume it has to be a swap FILE, within a partition,
> not a PARTITION, as Mandrake would try to use it if it was a
> partition?). That would give Lunar another 1GB+ in its root
> partition.
>
> I've installed Lunar via CD-ROM about 5 or 6 times now. The initial
> install and kernel compile always go fine, but at the end I'm
> always left with an "aggressive" kernel, ie,
> "vmlinubz-2.4.20-r1-aggressive" (that is from memory, might not be
> verbatim but I imagine y'all get the idea). It boots fine, but when
> I try to load my NIC module (vanilla NIC which uses the tulip
> driver and runs fine w/Mandrake), it tells me that the tulip driver
> was compiled for a vanilla kernel, but I'm using an aggressive
> kernel...
>
> I've fooled w/Linux for some time now, but as most of it is on
> Mandrake, I've never actually compiled a kernel. ;) I assume I'm
> incorrectly setting or resetting some option in the kernel config
> screens, but I have no idea what option(s). Each time I've tried to
> be more and more "conservative" (as *I* see it!) in my option
> selections, but the end result's always the same: I can't load my
> NIC and therefore can't do much except play with bash.
>
> Would it help if I listed all the kernel compile options I selected,
> or is this a no-brainer for someone who knows Lunar? I'm assuming
> the latter...
>
> What filesystems are required? I'm using (trying, anyway ;) reiserfs
> on my root partitions, and on /home/shared; /boot is ext2. I've
> deselected most of the filesystems I don't use; at boot time I seem
> to be getting messages complaining about an inability to read a
> UMSDOS partition; there are no DOS or Windows partitions on the
> drive (and I'm certainly not booting from a Windows partition). It
> also is complaining about missing the UFS filesystem. I'm not
> trying to fix all this at once (or I'd quit being lazy and go get
> some logs from the Lunar partition), but as I said earlier, I don't
> know what's interacting with what. Am I removing an fs that makes
> the kernel compile 'aggressively'? And, BTW, WTH is an 'aggressive'
> kernel, anyway? Is it gonna make a pass at my Mandrake install? ;)
> It can *have* any of my Windows CDs, to do with as it pleases...I'm
> quite excited about this distro, if I can just get it running.
>
> Blue Skies, and TIA...Keith Adney
>
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