[PLUG] Upgrading from Woody to Sarge

[j freyley]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 11:28:40 -0700, Richard C. Steffens
<rsteff.l at comcast.net> wrote:
> Rogan Creswick wrote:
> >>Does the instruction that says "make config # or make menuconfig or make
> >>xconfig (or, for 2.6.x kernels, make gconfig) and configure" mean that I
> >>have to use make gconfig, or will the 2.6.x kernel also work with make
> >>menuconfig? I have no attachment to a GUI based configuration tool if it
> >>isn't required.
> 
> > It dosen't matter how you configure your kernel, make config, make
> > menuconfig, make xconfig, make gconfig and I _think_ there is a kde
> > interface, all do exactly the same thing.
> 
> Ok, make menuconfig it is, then. That seems to have worked fine.
> 
> Next, however, is the part that is probably the cause of my problem. The
> instructions say:
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Phase TWO: Create a portable kernel image .deb file
>    make-kpkg clean
>    make-kpkg --revision=custom.1.0 kernel_image Note: if you have
> instructed your boot loader to expect initrd kernels (which is the norm
> for recent official kernel image packages) you need to add --initrd to
> the line above, and make sure that you have applied the cramfs initrd
> patch to the kernel sources (or modified mkinitrd config not create a
> cramfs initrd). The cramfs initrd patch is shipped with Debian kernel
> sources.
>    make-kpkg --initrd --revision=custom.1.0 kernel_image
> Personally, I prefer non initrd images for my personal machines, since
> then adding third party moduoles to the machine has fewer gotchas
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> So, I either have to learn how to apply a patch to the kernel, or how to
> instruct my bootloader not to use initrd. Perhaps if I did the latter,
> the already compiled 2.6.7 kernel would work. Is that something that
> goes in the lilo.conf file? The man page for initrd mentions an option,
> noinitrd. For other options it says where to put the option in
> lilo.conf, so I guessed that I could put "noinitrd" in there, too. If
> that's where it goes, it must be along with something else, because when
> I tried it, and ran lilo, the error message complained about an invalid
> token.
> 
> Where do I instruct the bootloader not to use initrd?

Your bootloader assumes no initrd unless you tell it to use an initrd.

However, init assumes that it has everything available to boot the
system, so if critical infrastructure is built as modules, you cannot
boot the system without an initrd.

So you'll have to check that the following things (off the top of my
head -- there may be more) are compiled into the kernel and not
modules.

ide support, if you're using an ide hard drive
your filesystem support (ext2, ext3, reiser, whatever)
your partition style support (dos partitions usually)

frequently filesystems and partitions are compiled as modules and put
into the initrd.

Jeff
 
> --
> Regards,
> 
> Dick Steffens
> http://home.comcast.net/~rsteff/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG mailing list
> PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>