Hi,

When Slack 10.1 came out, I had a hard time installing it on my wife's
laptop, a Compaq Presario 2100. The DVD drive sometimes worked, sometimes
refused to work, so I gave it a go a few times, until I had all packages
transferred and installed. The install seems a bit untidy, as there are
some minor bugs in a few apps, for example some nasty font shadows in
OpenOffice, that don't figure in my install (from the same set of CDs). I
must add that the DVD drive worked like one time out of ten, I thought it
was a hardware fault, and gave up on it.

Now a few months ago, Grant was so kind as to show me how to install a 2.6.x
kernel and tune it to the hardware. So I dmesged and lspcied a lot,
configured only what I had in the PC, and all of a sudden: hey, everything
worked nice.

lspci output shows this for the disk controller:

00:10.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)

So I configured everything accordingly, and all of a sudden, the DVD drive
worked A-OK.

Just got myself a set of Slackware 10.2 CDs, and before risking a general
mess, I wonder:

Boot on test26.s? Would this "recognize" the disk controller chipset better
than, say, 2.4 29 or 2.4.31?

And then, what about the modules? Upon the first reboot, they are not there
(yet), they are in /testing. But rebooting before installing them, it will
look vainly for the modules... and the DVD won't work again. But I need the
DVD to transfer the modules. Argh.

What can a poor boy do? Build a custom Slackware install CD, so kernel
modules from 2.6.13 get instantly installed, instead of afterwards (when
it's too late?).

I admit there is some inconsequence here on Mr. Volkerding's side. Why not
permit a full-blown install of kernel and modules and source, instead of
forcing users to mess around? (But then, this is only my second
disappointment with Slack so far, so it's ok) (First disappointment:
missing ldapD)

Any suggestions as to how I should go about that?

Cheers,

Niki Kovacs
--
I'm not as think as you stoned I am.

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In alt.os.linux.slackware, Niki Kovacs dared to utter,
> Just got myself a set of Slackware 10.2 CDs, and before risking a general
> mess, I wonder:
>
> Boot on test26.s? Would this "recognize" the disk controller chipset better
> than, say, 2.4 29 or 2.4.31?

You are certainly free to try it.

> And then, what about the modules? Upon the first reboot, they are not there
> (yet), they are in /testing. But rebooting before installing them, it will
> look vainly for the modules... and the DVD won't work again. But I need the
> DVD to transfer the modules. Argh.

The thing to do is boot the install, run it like you normally would,
then before rebooting, installpkg the kernel modules for that kernel
from the commandline. This is fairly easy to do.

man installpkg

Look for the --root option.

> I admit there is some inconsequence here on Mr. Volkerding's side. Why not
> permit a full-blown install of kernel and modules and source, instead of
> forcing users to mess around?

The trouble with this is that the different kernel versions are going
to need different modules. Since bare.i, scsi.s, and the rest are all
the same kernel version, they can use the same modules package, but
test26.s, a vastly different version, can't do this.

As for why 2.6 isn't the default now and 2.4 phased out, there are a
lot of reasons for that which I won't go into great detail on. Suffice
it to say that this has been thought about a lot and so far Pat has
still believed that the current course of action is the right course,
as evidenced by his taking it.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 16:16:46 +0200, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:

>Just got myself a set of Slackware 10.2 CDs, and before risking a general
>mess, I wonder:
>
>Boot on test26.s? Would this "recognize" the disk controller chipset better
>than, say, 2.4 29 or 2.4.31?

Why not try it and report what happens?
>
>And then, what about the modules? Upon the first reboot, they are not there
>(yet), they are in /testing. But rebooting before installing them, it will
>look vainly for the modules... and the DVD won't work again. But I need the
>DVD to transfer the modules. Argh.

One of the joys in the slackware install environment is that one can
do post install stuff _prior_ to that first reboot. I need to check
/etc/lilo.conf and /etc/fstab are correct -- improves my success rate
with lilo booting as expected...
>
>What can a poor boy do? Build a custom Slackware install CD, so kernel
>modules from 2.6.13 get instantly installed, instead of afterwards (when
>it's too late?).

Dunno, I've been seeing references to test26 for some days, didn't
know what it was. I install a 2.4 stable system, than compile the
development 2.6 kernel later -- while 2.6 is pushed by some as a
stable kernel -- slackware is not backward in staying with reliable
2.4 kernel, gets the job done. 2.6 is fluff for the non-mainstream
hardware, sysfs is still evolving, as is udev, hotplug and the pcmcia
re implementation -- things that break userspace (in kernelspeak).

>I admit there is some inconsequence here on Mr. Volkerding's side. Why not
>permit a full-blown install of kernel and modules and source, instead of
>forcing users to mess around? (But then, this is only my second
>disappointment with Slack so far, so it's ok) (First disappointment:
>missing ldapD)

Because 2.6 linux-kernel _is_ a mess. As 2.4 is unfinished -- all that
stuff marked experimental will remain so. Doesn't mean 2.6 isn't useful,
simply subject-to-change. There are areas meant to be addressed by
distro's, but are not addressed by slackware as it ships with vanilla
kernels. Yes, there is good and bad in that, but we need to work a
little harder for some installs.

But as far as the kernel goes, I don't use distro kernels, I don't
install kernel-source*.tgz, preferring instead to use the latest from
kernel.org, and dual boot 2.4 / 2.6 kernels on all but the firewall
box. The firewall stays on 2.4.latest. Why? Stable, secure, the
only machine here I don't expect to be rebooting at a moment's notice
for trying out something.
>
>Any suggestions as to how I should go about that?

linux/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt (2002-11-24)
linux/Documentation/ide.txt (2003-08-20)
man modprobe.conf (2004-09-30)

Perhaps append = "ide0=alim15x3" in lilo will do the trick with distro
kernel + modules?

Copy the module set from CDROM/DVD to /lib/modules/$(uname -r) prior
to that first reboot -- when install finishes, use the [ Exit ] option
rather than Ctrl-Alt-Del as per instructions. Most things work on
CLI, like an xterm minus eye-candy.

Cheers,
Grant.

+Alan Hicks+ wrote:

>> Boot on test26.s? Would this "recognize" the disk controller chipset
>> better than, say, 2.4 29 or 2.4.31?
>
> You are certainly free to try it.

As it is, I just copied the test26.s bzImage from the install CD to
the /boot partition of my wife's laptop, added a stanza
to /boot/grub/menu.lst and booted the thing just to see what happens.

Result: looks like vital stuff like filesystems and the likes is compiled
in, whereas completely superfluous stuff like mouse support, parallel port
and boot logo is nonexistent.

Hey, that was exactly what I was looking for: a kernel that understands
enough disk controller lingo to be able to build and install my own custom
kernel after first reboot. No need for modules here.

Cheers,

Niki

PS: first impression... KDE 3.4.2 is sleek and FAST!
--
I'm not as think as you stoned I am.

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 16:16:46 +0200, Niki Kovacs wrote:

> Just got myself a set of Slackware 10.2 CDs, and before risking a general
> mess, I wonder:
>
> Boot on test26.s? Would this "recognize" the disk controller chipset better
> than, say, 2.4 29 or 2.4.31?
>
> And then, what about the modules? Upon the first reboot, they are not there
> (yet), they are in /testing. But rebooting before installing them, it will
> look vainly for the modules... and the DVD won't work again. But I need the
> DVD to transfer the modules. Argh.

Yeah, the post install of the newer kernel and modules all at once after
first going with the defaults has always worked prefectly for me when I've
done it. I did this in 10.1 and once I figured out 2.6 related stuff like
using /dev/uba1 instead of /dev/sda1 for my usb flash drive and taking the
hdd=ide-scsi out of lilo I was pretty much set and everything worked
nicely.

Aaron
Never look straight at a monkey if he is flinging poop.