Reverting to my old kernel...

[dan@george]

I'm pretty new to Linux, and this is the first time I've tried to build a kernel.

I just compiled and installed a new kernel of version 2.4.26, and since I was already running a kernel of the same version, I had to move /lib/modules/2.4.26 to /lib/modules/2.4.26.old. But I don't want to reboot and find out that I made some horrible mistake in my new kernel and be unable to boot in the old one because the modules are moved. So in case that happens, how do I tell Lilo to boot vmlinuz.old and look for the modules in /lib/modules/2.4.26? And will this work?

[andutt]

Just rename all nessasary files under /boot to .old. And make a new entry in /etc/lilo.conf for the old kernel.

What is good to know in the future is to change version and name in Makefile in you kernel source tree. That way you dont overwrite your existing kernel like you did now.

[dan@george]

Thanks for that last piece of advice, but it was already too late; I'm in deep trouble now (or at least I think I am).

My new kernel loads everything fine except PCMCIA support -- I tried to compile that straight in, but apparently I did it wrong, and now I don't even have the module for my NIC (8139too). So I can't get it online.

And now when I try to boot my old kernel it panics and says it can't mount /dev/hda. So I put an entry in lilo.conf for my even older kernel (2.4.24-1-686), but that won't even show up on the list at boot time. The entry looks like this (/vmlinuz.vo is a symlink to /boot/2.4.24-1-686):

image=/vmlinuz.vo
   label=LinuxVO
   read-only
   optional
# restricted
# alias=3

What would you recommend? I hope this isn't as big a mess as it feels like...