kernel newbie (state my appologies now)

[leenux_tux]

Hello all,
Have been trying to install 2.6.X kernel for some time now, without success. I am definitly a kernel "virgin", however, I have (for my sins) 5 years IBM AIX experience behind me so working from the command line is not a prob. I have ready through the "digitalhermit" version of the new KERNEL HOWTO, and read through many of the posts listed on this Forum, however, I am still not getting any further (doh). I have done the following.

1, Downloaded the src, 2.6.6.
2, unpacked it and placed it in /usr/src/2.6.6.
3, Ran make menuconfig to customize, accepting the offer to save the new settings upon exit
4, Ran "make clean" (I think this removes any older configuration files, is this correct?)
5, Ran make bZImage (why this file name, how does this relate to the existing kernel ?)
6, make modules (I know that this compiles the items marked a modules when you run make menuconfig...... I...... think....... clarfication would be great.
7, and this is where it all goes pear shaped (sorry for the phrase, means 'wrong').

I have no idea as to the relevance of the required files, system.map for example. I also have a file which tells the boot loader (initrd is it called?) where to get the kernel as I am using RAID. and what does device.map do ?

I guess I am looking for a "definitive guide to the kernel", however, after looking around there does not seem to be one.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

Please note, I would like to have two bootable kernels if poss......

system details.
Kernel - 2.4-18-14
Flavour - Redhat 8
RAID - Highpoint (works OK now!!!)
boot loader - GRUB
not sure if anything else is relevant.

thanks in advance

leenux_tux

[doppleganger]

K lets start with your first problem redhat. You cannot install or use a 2.6 kernel with redhat without updating a few system tools because redhat is over 3 yrs old if using redhat 9. if your gonna do make clean do that before make menuconfig after you finish kernel selelctions and save config then do
make && make modules_install
when kernel finishes
cp /arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/newkernelname
cp System.map /boot/System.mapnewkernelname

now before you even start compiling you have to link
/usr/src/linux to your new kernel if you install the kernel source from an rpm it usually links it for you. you can check this by doing the following
ls -l /usr/src/linux
it should point to your kernel by displaying its name if it doesn't and it points to a diff kernel then do this.
rm /usr/src/linux && ln -s /usr/src/newkernelfoldername /usr/src/linux

then when you go to build a kernel do
cd /usr/src/linux and do the make menuconfig and etc.

heres a kernel compile guide
http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/K...ild-HOWTO.html

best of luck

[leenux_tux]

Thanks for the response, I think I am going to upgrade the system to Fedora ( I already have on other machine on FC1 ) Core 2 before I start to do anything with the Kernel.

[variant]

try gentoo it is far better than fedora/redhat/suse/mandrake/deb/slack.. although deb and slack are not far behind imo!

[leenux_tux]

Gentoo is one of the alternatives I have been looking at as I am in the middle of building an AMD 64 bit machine, and I know Gentoo has a 64bit O/S.

The main problem I have unfortunatly is that I will be doing a lot of Oracle (also 64bit) testing on it and I have not seen anyone who has posted information regarding the use of Oracle on Gentoo, or have built web pages with the relevant information on them, it all seems to relate to RH/Mandrake.