This blog started out as an install log of RedHat 9 on a Compaq Presario 2538cl laptop (linuxpresario.blogspot.com) . However, I soon started to include little logs to myself when I made configuration changes to software, etc. So, I've moved it over to our domain, and changed its name to Linux Log. Here you will find some tips & tricks related to Linux configuration on a laptop, as well as software related things that I run into. I log here things that worked for me, of course, your mileage may vary.

Any questions/comments? E-mail me at linux_atsign_boshoff|za|net.

2.4.22 Kernel

October 09, 2003

I decided to give the kernel.org kernels a shot, instead of using Red Hat's kernels. Here's the log of how I set up the kernel.

This post will now supersede that of May 26th.

• Download the latest stable (2.4) kernel and appropriate patches:
  
  
  
  1. Kernel from kernel.org.
     
  2. ACPI Patch matching kernel version from ACPI4Linux project page.
     
  3. Software suspend patch from Software Suspend for Linux.
     
  4. New NTFS driver patch from the Linux NTFS Project. It seems I'll have to wait on this driver. The software suspend patch does not support this driver yet. So, just go with the NTFS driver already present in the 2.4 kernel.
     
  
  
• Unpack the kernel and apply the patches:
  
  
  
  1. Kernel in /usr/src:
     bzip2 -dc ~/Software/linux-2.4.22.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
     As RedHat likes to do, I created a symlink
     ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.4.22 /usr/src/linux-2.4

  2. Apply ACPI patch from /usr/src/linux-2.4:
     bzip2 -dc ~/Software/acpi-20030916-2.4.22.diff.bz2 | patch -p1

  3. Unpack the swsusp package, and then apply it from /usr/src/linux-2.4:
     bzip2 -dc ~/Software/swsusp-2.0-rc1-whole | patch -p1
     

  4. Apply the NTFS patch from /usr/src/linux-2.4:
     bzip2 -dc ~/Software/linux-2.4.22-ntfs-2.1.4c.patch.bz2 | patch -p1
     
  
  
• make clean;make mrproper
  
• Copy my last .config file, which you can see here. I'm still in the process of streamlining this kernel for my laptop, since I don't have tons of time or experience, I'm not sure yet which components are safe to leave out.
  make xconfig, just save and exit.
  
• make dep
  
• Change the version information in /usr/src/linux-2.4/Makefile to reflect the new version. (I just add "custom" to the end.)
  
• make bzImage
  
• make modules; make modules_install
  
• Copy the kernel (and corresponding config file to /boot):
  cp /usr/src/linux-2.4/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22custom
  cp /usr/src/linux-2.4/.config /boot/config-2.4.22custom.
  
• mkinitrd initrd-kernel-version.img kernel-version
  
• Edit the GRUB configuration file and add the kernel entry, appending "resume /dev/hda6" to the kernel parameters. As the HOW-TO on the Software Suspend site suggests, I also added an entry with "resume /hda6 noresume", so you have the option of skipping the resume.
  

The kernel as configured with RedHat's .config file results in a hang on start-up at kudzu. The way around this for me was to disable firewire support. Since I've not needed this in Linux yet, I'll not worry about it for now. Maybe I can get it to work later.

Now it's a matter of getting Software Suspend to work, I haven't tried yet. It will have to wait until I have some time!