Mailing List Archive

Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8
Hi All,

I've just spent some time upgrading the kernel on my Miata box
from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8. I thought I'd share my thoughts and
perhaps encourage others who're keen to try this.

0. Getting the information
I used these links -- they were fantastic. Thanks a lot to the authors.
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/migration-to-2.6.xml
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/udev-guide.xml

1. Getting up to date
I did the "emerge -ua world" to bring my whole system up to date.
sendmail-8.13.3 and strace-4.5.11 wouldn't build. Anyone seen this?
Neither of these are important to a kernel upgrade, of course, so I
carried on.

2. Getting the source.
Using "emerge gentoo-sources" failed with the error
"All ebuilds that could satisfy "gentoo-sources" have been masked"
I used "emerge vanilla-sources", and got the source unpacked in
/usr/src/linux-2.6.11.8.

Should there be a gentoo-sources for alphas?

3. Configuring and building.
No problems there; just follow the linked documents carefully.

4. Booting.
I had some problems booting. First, I configured my kernel for
my system type (miata). This kernel hung while booting (I think in the
keyboard initialization code). I had the same problem with 2.4.x
kernels on this box; the solution then was to rebuild with the
system-type set to "generic". This worked.

The second problem was that I had problems with devices. This
turned out to be a mistake I made in configuring the kernel.
A more careful reading of the udev page sorted this out.

The third problem I had was relatively minor. My eth0 and eth1
were switched around, and all network services (and the firewall setup)
were seriously confused. This just required editing the appropriate
files in /etc. Perhaps a word in one of the docs might help
others who get stuck at this point?

Other than that, my alpha's happy and has been up for an hour now.

Thanks people for all the hard work!

Andrew.

--
gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
Andrew Gaylard wrote: [Fri May 27 2005, 03:49:09PM EDT]
> I've just spent some time upgrading the kernel on my Miata box
> from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8. I thought I'd share my thoughts and
> perhaps encourage others who're keen to try this.

A note for anybody interested in jumping on this: 2.6.11.8 does not
build out of the box on SMP machines. 2.6.12_rc4 does however, so
you can either try that or wait for 2.6.12 to be available and marked
stable.

> 1. Getting up to date
> I did the "emerge -ua world" to bring my whole system up to date.
> sendmail-8.13.3 and strace-4.5.11 wouldn't build. Anyone seen this?

Please file bugs for these... http://bugs.gentoo.org/

> 2. Getting the source.
> Using "emerge gentoo-sources" failed with the error
> "All ebuilds that could satisfy "gentoo-sources" have been masked"
> I used "emerge vanilla-sources", and got the source unpacked in
> /usr/src/linux-2.6.11.8.
>
> Should there be a gentoo-sources for alphas?

Yes, we should, but we've been concentrating on vanilla-sources for
now.

> 4. Booting.
> I had some problems booting. First, I configured my kernel for
> my system type (miata). This kernel hung while booting (I think in the
> keyboard initialization code). I had the same problem with 2.4.x
> kernels on this box; the solution then was to rebuild with the
> system-type set to "generic". This worked.

Interesting! For me "generic" doesn't work, but "dp264" does (on
a ds20e). I guess this is sort of like the tulip driver: if it
doesn't work, try the other one.

> The third problem I had was relatively minor. My eth0 and eth1
> were switched around, and all network services (and the firewall setup)
> were seriously confused. This just required editing the appropriate
> files in /etc. Perhaps a word in one of the docs might help
> others who get stuck at this point?

A lot of devices (network, disks, even serial ports) can be renumbered
in the switch from 2.4 to 2.6. You're right, it would be nice if this
were noted in the docs.

Regards,
Aron

--
Aron Griffis
Gentoo Linux Developer
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
Aron Griffis wrote:
> Andrew Gaylard wrote: [Fri May 27 2005, 03:49:09PM EDT]
>>I did the "emerge -ua world" to bring my whole system up to date.
>>sendmail-8.13.3 and strace-4.5.11 wouldn't build. Anyone seen this?
>
>
> Please file bugs for these... http://bugs.gentoo.org/

OK, done. The sendmail bug is bug 94287.
The strace problem's gone away -- I must have tried an older version.

>>4. Booting.
>>I had some problems booting. First, I configured my kernel for
>>my system type (miata). This kernel hung while booting (I think in the
>>keyboard initialization code). I had the same problem with 2.4.x
>>kernels on this box; the solution then was to rebuild with the
>>system-type set to "generic". This worked.
>
>
> Interesting! For me "generic" doesn't work, but "dp264" does (on
> a ds20e). I guess this is sort of like the tulip driver: if it
> doesn't work, try the other one.

Here's a question: will my kernel be slower if it isn't built for
the exact machine type? In other words, what exactly does the
"system type" affect?


--
gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
On Sat, May 28, 2005 at 04:19:02PM +0200, Andrew Gaylard wrote:
> Aron Griffis wrote:
> >Andrew Gaylard wrote: [Fri May 27 2005, 03:49:09PM EDT]
> >>I did the "emerge -ua world" to bring my whole system up to date.
> >>sendmail-8.13.3 and strace-4.5.11 wouldn't build. Anyone seen this?
> >
> >
> >Please file bugs for these... http://bugs.gentoo.org/
>
> OK, done. The sendmail bug is bug 94287.
> The strace problem's gone away -- I must have tried an older version.
>
Nope, we fixed that bug :)
<snip>
> >
> >Interesting! For me "generic" doesn't work, but "dp264" does (on
> >a ds20e). I guess this is sort of like the tulip driver: if it
> >doesn't work, try the other one.
>
> Here's a question: will my kernel be slower if it isn't built for
> the exact machine type? In other words, what exactly does the
> "system type" affect?
>
Possibly, yes. According to the help in menuconfig the Generic system
type makes the kernel slower and larger. Not sure how big (if any) a
impact it'll have.

Regards,
Bryan Østergaard
--
gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
Andrew Gaylard wrote:

> Aron Griffis wrote:
>
>> Andrew Gaylard wrote: [Fri May 27 2005, 03:49:09PM EDT]
>>
>>> I did the "emerge -ua world" to bring my whole system up to date.
>>> sendmail-8.13.3 and strace-4.5.11 wouldn't build. Anyone seen this?
>>
>>
>>
>> Please file bugs for these... http://bugs.gentoo.org/
>
>
> OK, done. The sendmail bug is bug 94287.


Bug fixed today, thanks to kloeri, lcars and ferdy. :)
Good work guys!

Andrew, thanks a lot for your feedback. As you can see it helps us to
improve Gentoo/Alpha.

-------------------------------------
YosWinK @ gentoo.org
--
gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
Jose Luis Rivero (YosWinK) wrote:
> Andrew Gaylard wrote:
>> OK, done. The sendmail bug is bug 94287.
>
> Bug fixed today, thanks to kloeri, lcars and ferdy. :)
> Good work guys!
>
> Andrew, thanks a lot for your feedback. As you can see it helps us to
> improve Gentoo/Alpha.

I will continue to help where I can. I've worked on bug 92232 (testing
a suggested patch), and bug 89089 (created a patch). How do I go about
getting these fixes approved and the bugs closed? Should I just be
patient?

I'm new to gentoo (but not to Linux), and I have to say that without it,
I'd have to throw away my Alpha box. Thanks to everyone who has made
gentoo on Alpha so great!

--
Andrew

--
gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
On Monday 30 May 2005 10:04, Andrew Gaylard wrote:
> a suggested patch), and bug 89089 (created a patch). How do I go about
> getting these fixes approved and the bugs closed? Should I just be
> patient?
Well new to bugzilla also maybe. If memory serves me right, all you have to do
is create a new attachment for the bug and set it to closed, resolved. If you
log in to bugzilla it should be something about that behind the comment
field.
--
Sigurd Stordal
President of GOGS
Experimental Petrologist
Opus Creator VSOP in DNM95
(The Norwegian Male Choir of 1995)
--
gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
Sigurd Stordal wrote:
> On Monday 30 May 2005 10:04, Andrew Gaylard wrote:
>
>>a suggested patch), and bug 89089 (created a patch). How do I go about
>>getting these fixes approved and the bugs closed? Should I just be
>>patient?
>
> Well new to bugzilla also maybe. If memory serves me right, all you have to do
> is create a new attachment for the bug and set it to closed, resolved. If you
> log in to bugzilla it should be something about that behind the comment
> field.

Really?

Surely the patches need to be checked into source control, applied
to the bundles which are distributed, etc.

And surely *I* don't have rights to do that... do I?

Perhaps I should have put the question differently: Once a patch
is in bugzilla, and is checked and found OK by someone other than
the poster, what is the process from that point?

Andrew.

(Sorry if these are dumb questions -- I'm keen to see my fixes "go live".)

--
gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
Andrew Gaylard wrote: [Mon May 30 2005, 04:04:17AM EDT]
> I will continue to help where I can. I've worked on bug 92232 (testing
> a suggested patch), and bug 89089 (created a patch). How do I go about
> getting these fixes approved and the bugs closed? Should I just be
> patient?

Yep, mostly just be patient. If a bug sits idle for a few weeks with
a fix in-hand, it's not inappopriate to gently request attention to
the bug by sending email to the assignee. Alternatively you can bring
it up on #gentoo-alpha and one of the other devs may be able to take
care of it.

Regards,
Aron

--
Aron Griffis
Gentoo Linux Developer
Re: Some experiences upgrading my kernel from 2.4.28 to 2.6.11.8 [ In reply to ]
Andrew Gaylard wrote: [Mon May 30 2005, 09:59:14AM EDT]
> Perhaps I should have put the question differently: Once a patch is
> in bugzilla, and is checked and found OK by someone other than the
> poster, what is the process from that point?

As you suggested earlier, be patient. Hopping on IRC and bringing the
bug to somebody's attention is not a bad plan either.

Regards,
Aron

--
Aron Griffis
Gentoo Linux Developer