Hi Niki,
On Fri, 27 May 2005 11:46:16 +0200, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:
>
>I'm currently fiddling with the packaged 2.6.10 kernel, and I have a few
>questions about that.
>
>1) I use mainly ReiserFS, except for my /boot partition which is ext2. Can I
>safely omit the initrd if I compile ReiserFS directly into the kernel, or
>is there something else I'd need?

You are a worry 2.6.10 is non-stable, go for 2.6.11.10 or later,
compile in reiserfs and ext2 -- I put up an example of this very
recently. You do not want reiserfs4!
>
>2) What exactly does System.map do?

Take a peek at it, it is plaintext. ksymoops uses it (I think) to
work out what crashed where... Not sure if it also used by modules?
>
>3) I have several kernels in /boot, and several according System.map files.
>Question: when my /boot/grub/menu.lst stanza says
>"kernel=/vmlinuz-ide-2.4.29", does this mean that automatically the
>according System.map-ide-2.4.29 will be used (since it bears the same
>appendice)? Or do I have to symlink each to vmlinuz resp. System.map?

Yes, the kernel (bzImage|vmlinuz), System.map and modules are linked
by kernel version:
>
grant@sempro:~$ ls /boot/
README.initrd@ bzImage-2.4.30-hf2 config-2.4.31-rc1a
System.map-2.4.30-hf2 bzImage-2.4.31-rc1 config-2.6.11.10a
System.map-2.4.31-rc1 bzImage-2.4.31-rc1a config-2.6.11.10b
System.map-2.4.31-rc1a bzImage-2.6.11.10a config-2.6.12-rc5-mm1a
System.map-2.6.11.10a bzImage-2.6.11.10b config-2.6.12-rc5a
System.map-2.6.11.10b bzImage-2.6.12-rc5-mm1a diag1.img
System.map-2.6.12-rc5-mm1a bzImage-2.6.12-rc5a map
System.map-2.6.12-rc5a config-2.4.30-hf2
boot.0803 config-2.4.31-rc1

grant@sempro:~$ ls /lib/modules/
2.4.30-hf2/ 2.4.31-rc1a/ 2.6.11.10b/ 2.6.12-rc5a/
2.4.31-rc1/ 2.6.11.10a/ 2.6.12-rc5-mm1a/

root@sempro:/lib/modules# lilo
Warning: COMPACT may conflict with LBA32 on some systems
Added 12-rc5-mm1a
Added 2.6.12-rc5a
Added 2.6.11.10b *
Added 2.6.11.10a
Added 2.4.31-rc1a
Added 2.4.31-rc1
Added 2.4.30-hf2
Added winxp

Do yourself a favour, lose the symlinks, remember to adjust your
bootloader ) I use lilo, can't comment on grub, or, I can't see
any point in changing bootloader, learn one well and stick with it.

>4) I tried to recompile the stock 2.6.10 kernel, and the only alteration I
>made was change the processor type from 486 to 586/6x86. I couldn't boot on
>that new kernel, because there was an error about a wrong reiserfs module.
>I *think* I should have repeated mkinitrd, but then... AFAIK, I should have
>*two* initrd.gz files in /boot... one for the stock 2.6.10 kernel, and
>another one for the recompiled one. Hence my question above, about how to
>do without an initrd.

Refer archives, or see http://scatter.mine.nu/test/linux-2.6/ to pull a
couple working .configs. peetoo is ext2 /boot --> reiserfs over RAID0,
sempro is large primary reiserfs, both run 2.6.11.10 or sometimes 2.4
for testing.

You really are much better off not fiddling with distro kernel, grab the
latest stable kernel and leave distro kernel in as backup.

--Grant.