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Upgrading Your Current System To Kernel 2.6

Posted by timothy on from the share-and-enjoy dept.

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."

4 of 442 comments (clear)

  1. sound by spoonyfork · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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?

    --
    Speak truth to power.
  2. Running smooth by Geccoman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    --
    I'm on a chair.
  3. Re:Yow. by eln · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. My experience by Doug+Neal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...