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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 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
copy your /boot/config-2.x.y to the source directory as ./.config and then make oldconfig. It will go through all the old options setting them and present you with only the new options. Its a text only interface, but its pretty simple to choose between y/n/m/? and each option is pretty self explanitory. I think you can also step back a version using the same method, but Im not sure about that.
"We Don't Need No Truthless Heros!" - Project 86
by the way, while you're at it, there is an option to have a compressed configuration file included inside the kernel image itself, and to be read from /proc/config.gz ( applies only to 2.6 kernels and some patched 2.4 kernels only )
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
It wont solve the main problem, but you can enable the /proc/config.gz option in the 2.6 kernel, so you can access the old config at any time through the /proc interface.
I've used a KVM w/ both 2.6.0 and 2.6.1 and have had no problems. The trick was to use "IMPS/2" as the mouse protocol instead of "Auto". That, along with your ZAxisMapping option should be all you need to get it to work. Assuming of course your KVM is ps/2.
The default x86 kernel config always used to be Linus's machine; I don't know if this is still the case. =)
Kernel 2.6 is very usable and stable. I've been running mm-sources since 2.5.5x and haven't had any major problems with it. There's hardly any need for recompiling packages (there are few exceptions though, mostly packages that install some kind of kernel module, svgalib for example). One thing you must do is to replace modutils with module-init-tools.
Gentoo forums are relly your friend. There are tons of threads concerning 2.4 to 2.6 upgrade, including some howtos.
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
There is a 2.6 Input Drivers Faq . It covers some of the more common issues, including some KVM problems.
Be kind. There are too many mean people out there already.
In sum, yes. As with any major kernel update you have to have the matching user space parts or many devices will not work. Required documentation is included with the kernel;
README (case sensitive) and
./Documentation/Changes (as noted in README)
Keep in mind that if you don't need support for specific hardware -- say, ISDN or PC-Card/PCMCIA -- you can skip updating those packages.
Specific comment: Alsa is now the default sound system, and it needs updated supporting tools if you want to get a peep out of your audio. Point for point comments;
Normal precautions, nothing special.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
When you add new hardware that is not needed at boot (e.g not a bood device), simply build the kernel feature to support your new device as a module. Install the module and you are ready to go. No rebuild or reboot needed. You don't throw away config files. You save them for later use. The config procedure gives an option to save your config to an alternate location.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Speaking from experience (P1 100MHz, no MMX, 16MB RAM, 500MB disk), going from 2.4 to 2.5 was a beautiful, beautiful thing. Sure, it'll give you a ton more performance on a high-end box, but it makes a low-end box much more usable.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
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.