Newbie to compiling the kernel -- what did I do wrong?

[aschueler]

I am running Debian Woody, and have been trying to compile a custom kernel to allow for sound and video support.

I have so far done the following (cookbook type stuff):

apt-got kernel source (2.4.1, apt-got all the little tools you need, untarred everything, then did make xconfig and set up all the things I wanted (things like tulip I put as a module, set up smp, you know).

THen I saved and exited, did 'make dep', then did made a .deb from it with make-kpkg, then did the dpkg -i to the deb and installed the appropriate links in lilo by hand.

I have twice now compiled a custom kernel apparently succesfully. Yay for me.

BUT

Now, the modules I had (tulip, the keyboard stuff, others I surely don't know what they are) do not load either with my original kernel or the two new ones. I thought Debian would handle the modules for me?

Did I miss a step, or do I have to go in and load them all by hand into modules.conf? If I do, how do I know WHICH modules I need? write them down from the make xconfig screen, or is the some utility that can tell me what I need? None of the stuff online I could find or in Debian helpfiles covers this.

If you need some specific errors (like "could not load module tulip") from the logs, please let me know where to find them and I will be happy to post.

Thanks.

[lordnothing]

try doing this inside the /usr/src/linux dir...

make modules modules_install

making the .deb package may not have built the modules... see if that will fix your problem.. if not, post back and let us know.

[aschueler]

Okay, thanks for the reply. Here's what happened.

I reviewed over the logs, and it WAS loading most of the modules; however, I did something wrong when configuring options, so the network wasn't working (even when I tried to re-do ddclient and ifconfig eth0 up etc), so I bagged that kernel, and did a cp of the original woody config into my new kernel, then just did the options for 686 and smp by hand, turning off stuff I don't use like PCMCIA and wireless stuff.

That worked, and I was able to get a 'custom' kernel running.

Now I am trying to install the alsa modules, and for some reason this is even more hairy. I just downloaded everything, and just launched a :

 make-kpkg --revision number kernel_image

however, I got an error with my arbritary --revision (tried to call it alsa1, as in first trial with alsa), so instead just skipped the --revision statement. I assume it will look something like 10.00 custom now, and I hope it will work. Man do I hope so. It is currently doing its business, and after this I will do the alsa module image and see what evil I have accomplished...wish me luck!

[lordnothing]

have you thought about maybe using a 2.6 kernel? it's much easier to compile (3, maybe 4 commands) and ALSA is built-in... with 2.6, OSS has become deprecated...

[aschueler]

Yes, I thought a about it, but I was seeing some problems people where having with going to 2.6 from 2.4 with Debian, and they sounded like they knew what they were doing. I figured it might be easier to stick with a 2.4 kernel from a "stable" Debian point of view.

I have almost everything set up -- alsa installed, emu10k1...just some problems with aliases I think. Later on I'll ask how to remove kernels I am not using...they are piling up a bit with my efforts to make it all work

Mike

[lordnothing]

2.6.5 is very stable... i know the debian idea of "stable" is not the same as everyone else's, but from my experience, 2.6.5 is stable enough for anyone to use... that's the reason it has an even minor revision number.. with the kernel (and many other apps) if the second number is odd, it means that that version is development/testing/unstable... if it is even it means that it is a stable/production release that has been extensively tested and deemed ready for mass usage...

[Ph0eniX]

2.6.5 is very stable... i know the debian idea of "stable" is not the same as everyone else's, but from my experience, 2.6.5 is stable enough for anyone to use... that's the reason it has an even minor revision number.. with the kernel (and many other apps) if the second number is odd, it means that that version is development/testing/unstable... if it is even it means that it is a stable/production release that has been extensively tested and deemed ready for mass usage...

What do I need to put in sources.list in order to allow apt-get to download the 2.6.5 kernel?