Upgrading Your Current System To Kernel 2.6

An anonymous reader writes "This white paper provides an overview of the process of moving an existing desktop system to the 2.6 kernel. It will highlight other software requirements imposed by the new kernel and administrative changes that you must make when migrating an existing system to the 2.6 kernel. It supplements previous whitepapers in the same series about Customizing the 2.6 kernel [Slashdot discussion here(1)] and porting drivers to the 2.6 kernel [Slashdot discussion here(2)] to the 2.6 kernel."

Comments

sound

[spoonyfork]

I've been using Linux as a hobbyist since 1995. The one consistent thing over the releases that has always been a issue, at least for me, is getting sound to work. Various hardware, various distros, almost all require tweaking.

Does anyone else have the same observation?

Running smooth

[Geccoman]

I upgraded to the 2.6 kernel about a month ago, and have been nothing but impressed. I got increased speed, my sound works great (ALSA) and with 1280x1024 Framebuffer and Bootsplash (85Hz refresh no-less) even my console is nice to look at.

My NVidia drivers worked flawlessly with the new kernel, as well as my wireless network.

I get oooh's and ahhh's from the co-workers with 3DDesk, and my boss is impressed with my setup, even though he's got a shiny new G5 under his desk.

That's just my experience, though... YMMV

Re:Yow.

[eln]

The term "white paper" is meaningless these days. Now that the marketing departments have gotten ahold of it, "white papers" are usually nothing more than the same information included in the colored brochures, only on a white piece of paper in black text.

The days of "white paper" meaning a strictly technical or educational document are gone. These days, "white papers" are just another form of advertising.

Debina and 2.6 Kernel module loading at boot

[chivo]

The one problem I can't seem to find the answer to is how Debian tells the kernel which modules to autoload at boot. I know that for 2.4 kernels, there is a list in /etc/modules. However, with my 2.6 kernel. that file is ignored and I have to manually load all the modules I need after boot. A pain in the ass since I try to keep most of my device drivers as modules, like for my NICs, video card, USB, sound card, etc. Has anyone using Debian and 2.6 kernel found a solution to this?

Re:OT: Debian

[dsouth]

Advice? The first install is the worst. :-)

After that, debian gets much better -- my laptop has gone through three major debian releases (potato, woody, and now sid) using nothing more that apt-get commands. [Actually, I guess I'm not really qualified to comment on the debian install process since I haven't really installed it in the last three years -- I just keep updating the existing install.]

At the time I did the initial install of potato, the installer dumped you into dselect, which is confusing if you've never seen it before. It may be better now, but even if it isn't, you can always apt-get anything you forgot. And building your own kernel is a snap (get the sources from kernel.org, make xconfig to select what you want, make-kpkg clean, make-kpkg kerne_image modules_image, then dpkg -i to install your shiny new kernel.

I've also had good luck using alien to translate rpm->deb for the occasional time when I needed some software that wasn't available as a deb. YMMV. In a related vein, I've had good luck with the blackdown java debs (debian doesn't provide Java due to conflicts with Sun's license terms).

Overall, I've had fewer problems with Debian than I have with Red Hat (which I maintain for my employer) and Mandrake (which was my personal distro of choice before Debian). In particular, I find maintenance and bug-fixes much much easier (just run apt-get update, apt-get upgrade) and everything ``just works''.

Easy easy easy

[spaceyhackerlady]

I must live a charmed life, think pure thoughts or something, because my 2.6 experience has been nothing but positive.

My first experience was with a Compaq laptop, Slackware 9.0 and 2.6.0-test4. I found that I broke the 2.4 modutils when I upgraded to module-init-tools, but since 2.6 worked so well, I really didn't care. Oh, and I've never had any trouble with that crazy mouse touchpad thingy.

Slackware 9.1 says it's 2.6-ready, and it is. I've installed it on a number of systems and upgraded the kernel easily.

My current challenge is my Sun Ultra 5, which currently runs Debian (woody) with the 2.4.18 kernel it came with. I ended up building 64 bit SPARC gcc and friends as cross compilers on an x86 box. But hello world still doesn't link... :-(

...laura

My experience

[Doug Neal]

My setup - Debian on a Dell Inspiron 8100.

First of all the menuconfig menus are a lot more well organised and there are a lot more options, too. Configured it up and it booted OK... I've upgraded to every version so far. The good things:
* Much less work required with "external" device drivers. With 2.4 I had to separately compile ACPI, ALSA, the nVidia driver, PCMCIA and Lucent modem drivers. Now it's just the Lucent and nVidia drivers as the other three are now included already.
* ACPI support is better. Won't bore you with the details, but it is ;)
* Everything's faster, although I was using the new scheduler stuff as a patch to 2.4 so it didn't make too much difference.
* probably lots of little things I can't think of right now

The bad things - there seem to have been a few nasty bugs, but that's to be expected with such a big upgrade and most of them have been sorted. Currently ACPI battery support is doing funny things and occasionally reporting that the battery's empty, when it's not. Give it a couple of releases though and it should be all good :) With the addition of KDE 3.2 getting released this has been a really good upgrade and I would definitely recommend anyone else to do the same...