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Configuring the 2.6 Linux Kernel
An anonymous reader writes "This article is the first in a series by William von Hagen on using the new Linux 2.6 kernel, with a special emphasis on the primary issues in migrating existing drivers, applications, and embedded Linux deployments to a Linux distribution based on the 2.6 kernel. Bill is the author of Linux Filesystems, Hacking the TiVo, SGML for Dummies, Installing Red Hat Linux 7, and is the coauthor of The Definitive Guide to GCC (with Kurt Wall) and The Mac OS X Power Users Guide (with Brian Profitt)." This looks to be a good series for anyone planning to migrate to Linux 2.6, and having done just that myself, I'll attest to wanting more documentation along the way.
Mandrake 10 will be the first major distro use Kernel 2.6. Download the beta here.
Easy to install, just download the ISOs, burn to disk, reboot and the installer will appear.
Make sure to REPORT ALL BUGS, unless you want to see the LG incident again.
I had not trouble installing it in Mandrake 9.1, all I had to do is two changes in ATI's wrapper.
As for other drivers I need, they're all already included in the kernel.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world: Those who write in decimal and those who don't
Firstly, s/summerize/summarize/, and secondly, the 'funky X configuration interfaces' you talk about are nothing more than GUI applications which have nothing to do with the kernel.
This recent trend in GUIfication of Linux is troubling, and your post illustrates exactly why. It's the same 'logic' that allowed MS to call Windows an 'Operating System' before it really was. It's the same logic that lusers use when they say that they 'can't get into the Microsoft' when they really mean there's an application problem.
Computers are NOT monolithic, they are NOT black boxes. They are boxes of legos, where you can build what you want, when you want it, and leave out the crap. You have control.
Unless you cede responsibility and control to someone else.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
> make menuconfig
;)
I have never compiled my kernel before, and today I jsut compiled the 2.4 version, installed and later compiled 2.6.1 and installed... all without any problems.
Enough rant
I just like the config file method. Does this mean that I can keep my config file (for compiling the kernel) when I upgrade to the next stable? (keeping in mind that I have it customized)
I found this sticky at linuxquestions.org's forums to be most helpful in doing an easy and straightforward 2.6 compile on a slackware system. LinuxQuestions.org
Whats with the default config for the kernel, it's not blank, it's a specific setup that looks like it's for a P4 with a specific network card and chipset, shouldnt the kernel config be bare? this is referring to source downloaded directly from kernel.org,
the 'funky X configuration interfaces' you talk about are nothing more than GUI applications
Did you RTFA? The article basically stated some obvious changes, and talked up the new GUI configuration interface as if it was the best thing ever since sliced bread.
Nothing interesting in this article, IMHO. I hope the subsequent articles will be more informative.
Is the 2.6 kernel "Usable" yet? By this I mean getting obscure hardware to work such as my USB Midi Interface, and what about proprietary drivers such as Nvidia's, will existing code compiled for 2.4 kernel work? or will you have to recompile stuff (IPTables for example). Im running a gentoo box. I've been toying with updating the kernel to 2.6 and I've been hearing that there are a lot of radical changes to the kernel, the performance enhancements are very exciting to say the least. But what kinds of headaches am I going to have with a real world (used as a desktop as well as a server) system?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I've considered setting up a wiki for the Kernel to give people a place to file what they've learned about it and share with the general public. Anyone think this would help anyone?
I've only recently started using Linux on a day-by-day basis, and after installing Debian unstable I switched directly to 2.6, without ever compiling a 2.4 kernel. That worked without a hitch, so now I'm wondering if the difference is so big. I still have an old Pentium I around the house, and I'm thinking of making this one a firewall/IDS... and so far I'm not sure if 2.6 was a little overkill for that one...
-- Power corrupts, but PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
As far as I can tell, there is no way to use a KVM with kernel 2.6 and still have mouse wheel support. It works until you switch away and back to Linux, at which point the mouse goes completely nuts and cannot be revived. Back in 2.4, there were two hacks to revive the mouse in this situation (switch VCs, or set the mouse protocol in X to "AUTO") but neither of these work in 2.6. Windows, needless to say, has no problems. You can supposedly pass a psmouse.noext parameter to the kernel at boot time to fix the craziness, but a) this would remove mouse wheel support, and b) I never got it work anyway. If you know a workaround, please post!
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
If more people put up articles like this to make it easier to use the popular open source software products it'd speed up rate of adoption a lot. If there was one on writing kernel modules ... ;-)
The problem with building your own kernel is that you will always make it as slim as possible. Then each time you buy a new piece of hardware (USB-mouse, SATA hd, etc) you'll need to build it again (and you've thrown away the original .config of course :). Is there a configure everything (besides what's been specified as built-in) as modules?
This is just a very loosly disguised advert for TimeSys Linux
Nothing any monkey cant work out in about five minutes (and if they cant they should not be cross compiling for embedded devices)
Since most people dont RTFA this isnt a problem, if you are one of the many... dont bother - its S**T
I am looking for help on SCTP . Is there any one using it right now in linux as it is merged into 2.6 kernel.
My only problem right now is the lack of documentation... or my lack of finding it. I'm still having issues with my vid card and usb mouse. Oh well... back to hacking.
I think this will turn out to be a great series of white papers helping people get to grips with the process of configuring and compiling their own kernels, but I have to say that I think there would be faster progress on new kernels if the was some central repository of precompiled binary packages for the major distros throughout the development cycle.
The truth of the matter is that now linux is gaining wider acceptance, the community is filling up with more and more noobs and we should be doing more to help them understand the "new" (to them) technology. We also need to remember that not everyone who wants to use the software needs to be some sort of guru.This article is a great start to moving more people to the new code quicker, but regular up to date debs/rpms for all the current distributions will push that long even faster. I know someone will probably post saying "but there are packed versions for xxxx at somewhere.org", but they are often difficult to find for the noobs who just don't know where to look.
The 2.6 kernel is noticeably faster on my dual Athlon 2100+mp, at the user interface; X is faster than I've ever seen it before; the realtime scheduling is awesome.
In short, as soon as you can reasonably do so, I recommend you migrate to the 2.6.x kernel.
Thinking outside my Head
We all know that China will bury the United States within ten years. It's a fact of life. Either get used to it or stop buying their shoes. And if using Microsoft is patriotic, I guess there just isn't any hope for the whole goddamned United States of Amerika.
Seems like just in time, hopfuly some future articles will give some insight into how to get ISAPNP sounds cards to work. For some reason my ISAPNP OPL3SA2 cards can not be found when i either compile support into the kernel or into loadable modules...
seems like a few other people have this problem. Does anyone know the solution? Will i have to write the addresses of all the ports manualy and switch off ISAPNP for OPL3SA2?
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
people can't get the unbiased reporting that CNN provides?
Exactly what planet are you from?? I dont think that there is an unbiased news company in the USA - they are all far too interested in their OWN business interests to be unbiased.
The BBC is and always will be the closest the world has to unbiased reporting.
Please open your eyes for a change.
As opposed to, say, Microsoft or Oracle providing the software? And you don't think that the Chinese (or Indians, or Russians, or whatever) have the ability to write software themselves, that programming is somehow a uniquely American talent? If you get your head out of whatever other anatomical place it's parked in, you'd see how silly that is.
One of the advantages of Windows never mentioned in the article is the ability of Microsoft to remotely deactivate Windows XP in the case of a national emergency.
And you wonder why the rest of the world is moving away from it. Whether it's true or not, just making statements like this hurts the U.S. software industry more than anything that Stallman can say.
A known proponent of socialism, the Chinese government and RMS are natural allies.
Well golly, Bubba, it seems that the Bush administration has been getting pretty cozy with the Chinese government, too. If anyone's looking to sell out Taiwan, there's where you want to direct your vitriol. Are you aware that the President's brother, Neil Bush, is getting rich lobbying for China? No, I didn't think so...
Oops... I think I got baited!
Yeah, it's perfectly clear now. The FSF is a secret society filled with mutant commies!
Send in the clones!
The Computer is your friend!
LOL, 75 seconds for Loonix! For shits and giggles, I just tested the benchmark on my Windows XP box. In that time I copied the file, rebooted the computer, logged back in, watched a bukkake AVI, and shot my load before Lunix would've been done.
I found this sticky at linuxquestions.org's forums to be most helpful in doing an easy and straightforward 2.6 compile on a slackware system.
Compiling kernels on Slackware has always been easy and straightforward. Kernel 2.6 works out of the box (well, as out of the box as you can be for a source tarball) on Slack 9.1, without the need for patches, tweaking daemons etc. It just works. That's one of the reasons I switched to Slack early on when I was learning Linux. It's so simple, it's newbie-friendly. I know, because back in the 2.2->2.4 days, I tried using Redhat for the transition. It was painful for a clueless newbies like me.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
The foremost problem I had in migration was that SCSI emulation with ide-scsi is no longer used for CD burning. I expect many people making the upgrade will run into a problem with that.
You can use the standard ATAPI ide-cdrom driver now to burn your CDs, but the userspace programs haven't caught up to this in all distros, especially the GUI ones. cdrdao just doesn't work last I checked, and while cdrecord works alright in the newer versions, many GUI frontend burners simply use cdrdao too much to be useful.
Other problems I had were that lm_sensors changed a bit and I didn't find it important enough to upgrade to newer userspace stuff, but anyone who's relying on them for anything will likely want to know that it's changed and upgrades to userspace are necessary. The only other issue, which was fixed by a quick Googling was that the module system is changed and module-init-tools is now necessary for loading and unloading kernel modules.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Uh. Yeah, right. Check out the Hutton verdict.
BBC report that government dossier was "sexed-up" was unfounded
BBC's editorial system was defective in allowing report to air without approval.
I didn't know about xconfig before! I really have to spruce up my install. I'm still using kernel 2.6.0 and I should probably up it to 2.6.2. My problem is I use gentoo and I have to configure the kernel manually. I know HOW to do it as in what make commands to issue in order to get a binary kernel out of the thing. And how to put the kernel in /boot and point my lilo at it. What I'm not always sure on is exactly which configure options I want on and off. The important ones are obvious. Yes I have an athlon. Yes I need my nfornce network card, emu10k1, silicon image sata, pre-emptible kernel etc. etc. But a lot of them I just have no clue. Some options have useful help messages like "if you don't know, just say Y (or N) it wont slow you down". But there are still a zillion modules and options in there that I have no clue if I should use Y M or N.
We should make a repository of hardware configurations and which options should be turned on depending how you will use it. People should just say hey, I got this machine here with this hardware. I'm using it as a web server, and this is my kernel config. If enough people put there configs in, then people like me could find others with similar or identically matching hardware and use those configs. I'm sure it would also bring to light better configs for most people. I'm sure there's some guy out there not selecting a certain option who should be. And if he posts his config online some geek will be sure to point it out to him.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
It'll save a lot of time.
No, the BBC is run by cowards.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Is it too much to wish that in 2.6 more WLAN drivers can just be in the kernel, instead of having to screw around with a whole separate build? (Maybe there's a technical reason, though. Regardless, it's still a pain.)
Dr Superlove 300ml. I use my powers for awesome
Ok, despite the fact that this is blatently offtopic, I just had to point out that it has to be one of the funniest things I have ever read... Right up there with the "How to tell if your kid is a hacker" bit. GENIOUS!
Not Free(as in beer). Free(as in "I'm free to beat you over the head for being a dumbass")
Additional results just in:
FreeBSD 5.0: 1.2 Seconds
OpenBSD 3.2: 0.98 Seconds
Solaris 7.4(x86): 0.3 Seconds
CPM: 0.001 Seconds (but crashes)
Surely, it must have something to do with the "late bindening accounting Berkeley O(n * log (n))hippo-sockets" invented by Professor P.J. Dork in room 147 of the university of Berkeley.
Linux hda=remap63.
Neither exists, nor is needed on 2.4.24. On 2.6.0 it's supposed to do what has been done automagically up until now (well, until 2.5.30.) Not to mention, it fails at it.
Don't these guys know the 'Ain't broke? Don't fix' maxim? Props to Alan for his opposition to changes that made 2.6 impossible to use (boot!) for me (yes, I have to use OnTrack DM so I can get 100% out of my 40GB Seagate.)
Yeah. Mod me down as troll, redundant and flamebait at the same time. Go on. But please answer this question first: how to make it work?
Well, you can still use the ide-scsi emulation in 2.6, although it's not optimal. Recently there have been some fixes to ide-scsi in 2.6, that have made it usable again.
I'm using kernel 2.6.x and gentoo 1.4, and I'm fairly new to linux. All my h/w (nvidia, sblive, adaptec-compat scsi, usb mouse + mp3 player) works very well.
/proc/meminfo has changed (the first few summary lines have been removed) -- fixes for this don't seem to exist yet.
It wasn't as smooth an upgrade as I'd've liked, but, like I said, I'm fairly new to all this.
When I first upgraded, I did get a lot of errors/warnings on boot, but I have since fixed them all.
Ensuring you have the latest versions of hotplug and module-init-tools will help your migration to 2.6, as there are changes to h/w detection and module loading.
Take care when doing make oldconfig from an earlier gentoo kernel - gentoo kernels have had various performance patched in them for some time, but -- if I recall -- these settings didn't all magically migrate across, as the gentoo kernel build flags and the official kernel build flags have differing names for these features between 2.4 and 2.6. Just remember to check all your options with make menuconfig or similar. Some other build flags have changed names too, including stuff for usb devices and (IIRC) framebuffers -- this will probably only catch you out if you're migrating settings from an older kernel.
After building and installing my 2.6 kernel, I also installed the latest nvidia package from nvidia's website, and alsa-lib and alsa-utils (both 1.0.2, from portage)
Also, there are changes to how some system stats/info is handled/reported - ensure you have an up-to-date version of procps, or top might give some cranky info... some tools that monitor memory levels (gkrellm, various gdesklets) will stop working because the output of
Other than the meminfo issue, kernel 2.6 hasn't broken anything (that I've noticed) on my gentoo system, and it appears to work very well.
(Oh, kernel 2.6 did cause one of my drives to give warnings about unexpected DMAs every few mins, but that totally fixed itself once I stopped overclocking the CPU. The drive was running slower with a mis-firing DMA, but other than the warnings, no problems occured (YMMV). Something in 2.6 must be more timing sensitive or less tolerant of overcranked h/w speeds. NBD: my system is a few years old, the extra ~20% speed increase cannot is insignificant when compared to speeds of a modern CPU - it seemed a lot at the time!)
I'm about to get a new machine on which I want to install Linux. Which distro should I install that would already have the 2.6 included? Does Fedora? I'd like to save the time of not having to upgrade and configure a new kernel after just installing 2.4. Suggestions are welcome. Also, I'm a linux newbie so a distro with a good graphical installer is welcome.
Am I the only one who finds these things clunky? Both the QT and GTK ones. Maybe I just haven't given them a fair shake, but make menuconfig seems WAY more useable.
I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to tell such LIES!
yes. i really don't want to change from slackware - it is profoundly satisfying (when its configured proper for your system). It just works. I tried the 2.6 (easy as fuck to compile on slack) but had to revert because of my bastard winmodem. I know I could go out and buy a real modem (i will, i will) but just dumping working kit seems a stupid waste to me.
sig under development
Update your bios?
Not everybody has an eject button.
My Mac Cube doesn't even have a hole
for a paperclip.
So yes, the GUI does need to include
a method to cause eject. The installer
needs to eject a disk as well.
what part of CNN == Unbiased don't you get? :P
I have always felt that Linux is a nice operating system (for hobbyists and geeks), but there are some areas where it is seriously lacking, especially when compared to its main competitor, Microsoft Windows.
* File sharing. Windows has long been superior when it comes to making large
amounts of files available to third parties. Even early versions of Windows
automatically detected and made available all directories thanks to the built in
NetBIOS-powered file sharing support. But Microsoft has realized that this
technology is inherently limited and has added even better file sharing support
to its Windows XP operating system. Universal Plug and Play will
make it possible to literally access any file, from any device! I think
universal file sharing support needs to be built into the Linux kernel soon.
* Intelligent agents. With innovations like Clippy, the talking paperclip and Microsoft Bob, Microsoft has always tried to make life easier
for its customers. With Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft has built a framework for developers to create even smarter agents. Especially popular agents include "Sircam", which automatically asks the users' friends for advice
on files he is working on and the "Hybris" agent, which is a self-replicating
copy of a humorous take on "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves" (the real story!).
Microsoft is working on expanding this P2P technology to its web servers. This
project is still in the beta stage, thus the name "Code Red". The next versions
will be called "Code Yellow" and "Code Green".
* Version numbers. Linux has real naming problems. What's the difference
between a 2.4.19 and a 2.2.17 kernel anyway? And what's with those odd and even
numbers? Microsoft has always had clear and sophisticated naming/versioning
policies. For example, Windows 95 was named Windows 95 because it was released
in 1995. Windows 98 was released three years later, and so on. Windows XP
brought a whole new "experience" to the user, therefore the name. I suggest that
the next Linux kernel releases be called Linux 03, Linux 04, Linux 04.5 (OSR1),
Linux 04.7B (OSR2 SP4 OEM), Linux 2005 and Linux VD (Valentine's Day edition).
Furthermore, remember how Microsoft named every upcoming version of Windows
after some Egyptian city? Cairo, Chicago and so on. I think that the development
kernels should be named after Spanish cities to celebrate Linux' Spanish
origins. Linux Milano or Linux Rome anyone?
* Multi-User Support. This has always been one of Microsoft's strong sides,
especially in the Windows 95/98 variants, where passwords were completely
unnecessary. Microsoft has made the right decision by not bothering the user
with a distinction between "normal" and "root" users too much -- practice has
shown that average users can be trusted to act responsibly and in full awareness
of the potential consequences of their actions. After all, if your operating
system doesn't trust you, why should you trust it? (To be fair, Linux is making
some progress here with the Lindows distribution, where users are always running as root.)
With Windows XP, Microsoft has again improved multi-user support. Not only
does Windows XP come with a larg
Why the sudden explosion is wiki use? Does anyone really like them? Seriously, a wiki seem to be the most effective means of hiding information from casual readers since Microsoft's first attempt at the knowledge base. The people demand indices and tables of contents, not stream-of-conciousness inline links.
Put up a slashcode site, or a phpbb forum, or even (gag) phpNuke, but please, let the wiki die.
Of course installing from scratch will also take time but be a little bit more general in your time estimates please. Just because it is 20 minutes for you does not make that a hard fact for the time of compiling a kernel.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I went through this when moving from Redhat 6.2 -> Redhat 7.3 (LFS now). I got tired of not having the drivers for a 2.4 kernel for my winmodem, and I don't think the company that bought Lucent cared enough about my ISA modem to write a new driver.
I bought a US Robotics external modem. It is very easy to set up under Linux.
And it's generally agreed that Hutton was an absolute white-wash for the government. The real verdict on the sanctimonious sonofabitch, Bliar, will come at the next general election.
sig under development
The kernel of the OS is not X. It is not a widget kit. It is not your web browser. It's analogous to command.com, or vmunix, or ntoskrnl.exe. Kernel improvements are completely and utterly separate from the tool which allows a user to select kernel options.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I would just like to know how you could try Linux 2.7 kernel branch, as it wasn't forked from 2.6 yet. Hugh.
Im waiting for the article that shows how to protect yourself from all the r00t vulnerabilities.
By the way, it just took me 16.622s to copy a 341Mb from a IDE disk to another one on a Athlon XP 2400+/512Mb PC3200 DDR-SDRAM.
You can use network install boot floppies from the cooker folder:
n dr ake-devel/cooker/i586
ftp://sunsite/uio.no/pub/unix/Linux/Mandrake/Ma
you will neet network.img and network_drivers.img
use the command:
dd if=./network.img of=/dev/fd0
to put the images onto floppies (replace if=... with the image name)
or your other favorite cooker mirror to do a network install of only what you need. I did that and got it running in about 30 minues. Kernel 2.6.2-1 and KDE 3.2, etc.
LVM seems hopelessly hosed awaiting fixes. If you use LVM I'd stay with 2.4 for a while
copying 700mb file from /dev/hda1 to /dev/hdc1 ... 19.043 seconds
ext3 and kernel 2.6
If you are upgrading an NForce-based machine to 2.6.x, save yourself some headaches and add "noapic nolapic" to the Kernel append string. I experienced repeatable hard lockups when doing disk intensive I/O until adding those parameters.
Also, NVIDIA's nforce package is no longer necessary. The experimental forcedeth driver in 2.6.2 works quite well in my experience, and apparently an Intel sound driver works for the NForce onboard sound.
See my latest journal entry for my account of migrating MDK 9.1 to a vanilla 2.6.1 kernel.
It's a publicity piece for TimeSys Linux. The author gives absolutely NO new information. It looks like he simply paraphrased from the kernel HOWTO. I was hoping for some pointers on what to watch out for. What common applications, if any, break? That would be nice to know.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Hahah Win98 is "multi-user" hahaahaha. As for "user switching" you realize Linux has been able to do this since 1992 right?? What has happened is that XP has taken an idea from Unix (one that MS engineers probably were using for a while but the marketing department wanted to relea$e with a new ver$ion of the OS).
Has anyone here ported a 2.4 driver to 2.6? I have a Agere softmodem driver, that I'd like to use under 2.6, but I have problems with the PCI methods...
...in our next episode, we show you how to remove your head with a teaspoon.
Add this path to yum:
http://people.redhat.com/arjanv/2.6/
Kernel 2.6! Works!
for compiling a new minor version of a kernel (eg, 2.6.2 when you have 2.6.0 installed), try copying your old previously working .config file from the old source directory to the new one, and using
"make oldconfig". This will ask you only about new options. Means if you have a working config file, you are less likely to miss something and screw up.
Looks like the author forgot to mention that little step.
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for.
Couldn't get SMP going under SuSe 9.0 on dual Opterons. I'm not much of a kernel-guru though and probably missed something. Incidentally I also didn't have a clue how to compile in my gigabit ethernet driver (not in the base kernel of course). Guess I'm just a geek-lite. Other than that, very pleased with it's IO (which is the bottleneck I have with 2.4). For some reason 2.4.whatever is only using an eighth of the availiable IO to the raid array.
BTW, doing Blasting of DNA on a cluster with turbogenomics. Guess I'll have to wait until a usable 2.6 distro comes out.
Oh dear, oh deary deary me.
Actually, the problem is you have to upgrade to LVM2. Once you do that, LVM works just fine. Be sure to include device mapper in your kernel config and you should be ok. LVM 2 is back compatible with LVM 1, so that's not an issue.
I've wrestled with reality for 35 years and I'm happy to say, I finally won out - Elwood P. Dowd
Copying 700mb movie from /raidarray1 to /raidarray2 = 2.114 seconds
Both arrays use ext2 under 2.6.2-mm1
... this card comes in a bunch of old laptops. It can't be swapped out. Upgrading an entire laptop is rather more costly than replacing an obsolete soundcard.
L
2.6.2 Fails to compile on any of my machines. It dies with an odd error during a modules compile. I'm not the only one that receives this error. Anyone else getting that EOF error?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Paste the flowing into a registry file (*.reg) Then double click on it. (Or make the equivalent hacks to the registry by hand)
It works in Win2K, and NT4, I don't know about other windows versions.
i've apt-get'ed the most recent kernel-image-2.6 and ran lilo, but it never seemed to go past the:
"Uncompressing kernel.... OK, booting image" line.
google and newgroups didnt help. tried both 2.6.0 also with same problems.
guess it's not as simple as just plain apt-get...
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