Mailing List Archive

Another installation instructions question
Hi again,

This is probably obvious to anyone who has worked with Gentoo on Alpha
in the past, but I haven't, and I'm really wondering about this. When it
comes the time to install kernel sources ( here -
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-alpha.xml?part=1&chap=7
), the instructions mention vanilla-sources, alpha-sources and
compaq-sources. I was wondering, is there any difference, for example in
available kernel versions, or in supported subarchitectures (my machine
is an AlphaXL-366 -- xlt, 21164, ev56), or whatever?

I'm tempted to go with alpha-sources, since I guess compaq-sources being
used by RedHat might be outdated, and vanilla-sources might not be
optimized for alpha specifically. Am I right about that?

Also, should I stick to a 2.4 series kernel on my machine, or will a 2.6
series build all right? On my old debian system I had all kinds of
trouble with the 2.6 kernels, but that may just be because I couldn't
customize it correctly (I was using a pre-built debian kernel).

Thanks in advance,

J-S

--
__________________________________________
Jean-Sébastien Guay jean_seb@videoton.ca
http://whitestar02.webhop.org/



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gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Another installation instructions question [ In reply to ]
Hi J-S,

Good to see another fellow XLT owner!

[...]
> I'm tempted to go with alpha-sources, since I guess compaq-sources being
> used by RedHat might be outdated, and vanilla-sources might not be
> optimized for alpha specifically. Am I right about that?

Yes, go with alpha-sources. You'll get a 2.4.21 kernel that works, with a
small manual modification, on XLT (see this thread on the Alternative
Archs forum: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=161155 ). The
modification is to fix a bug that was solved in 2.4.22, but alpha-sources
only goes up to 2.4.21 so you have to do it by hand.

Also make sure you use the right MILO. The one for XLT on the Gentoo
LiveCD does not work. There is an experimental version floating around,
made by Jay Estabrook, with which I have had good results. Since you've
already used Debian, you may have it already. See the forum thread.

> Also, should I stick to a 2.4 series kernel on my machine, or will a 2.6
> series build all right? On my old debian system I had all kinds of
> trouble with the 2.6 kernels, but that may just be because I couldn't
> customize it correctly (I was using a pre-built debian kernel).

I've tried to build vanilla-sources, gentoo-sources, development-sources
and gentoo-dev-sources (2.4 and 2.6). Building wasn't a problem, but Milo
won't boot any kernel newer than 2.4.21 on my XLT-300. It just hangs after
jumping to the kernel. Eventually, I got tired of it and stopped trying.
But if you get any results with the 2.6 kernels, please post a message on
this list; I may try again.

Marnix.


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gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Another installation instructions question [ In reply to ]
The following random bytes came from Marnix Arnold's keyboard :

>Yes, go with alpha-sources. You'll get a 2.4.21 kernel that works, with a
>small manual modification, on XLT (see this thread on the Alternative
>Archs forum: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=161155 ). The
>modification is to fix a bug that was solved in 2.4.22, but alpha-sources
>only goes up to 2.4.21 so you have to do it by hand.
>
>
Well I finally tried with vanilla-sources first, I'll see how it goes.
The version I got was 2.4.28, which is what I was using on Debian
before, so I guess it should work...

>Also make sure you use the right MILO. ... Since you've
>already used Debian, you may have it already. See the forum thread.
>
>
Yup, I already had a MILO that worked. I'm just waiting to have mkdosfs
on the system to copy it over to my small FAT16 partition.

>But if you get any results with the 2.6 kernels, please post a message on
>this list; I may try again.
>
>
I'll try a 2.6 kernel later. On Debian, it booted, but then had problems
running some software (X, apache2, etc.) and I didn't have time to
troubleshoot (because the alpha was my house's gateway/router at the
time). Now, I'll have more time to check into it.

Which brings me to another question, how do I get a 2.6 kernel? Is there
anything I need to specify to emerge to get it?

Thanks again,

J-S

--
__________________________________________
Jean-Sébastien Guay jean_seb@videoton.ca
http://whitestar02.webhop.org/



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gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Another installation instructions question [ In reply to ]
On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 09:33:00AM -0500, Jean-Sébastien Guay wrote:
> The following random bytes came from Marnix Arnold's keyboard :
>
> >Yes, go with alpha-sources. You'll get a 2.4.21 kernel that works, with a
> >small manual modification, on XLT (see this thread on the Alternative
> >Archs forum: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=161155 ). The
> >modification is to fix a bug that was solved in 2.4.22, but alpha-sources
> >only goes up to 2.4.21 so you have to do it by hand.
> >
<snip long talk about kernels>

vanilla-sources (2.4 kernel), alpha-sources (2.4 kernel) and development-sources (2.6 kernel) all works fine on alpha. We're however removing compaq-sources and alpha-sources soon - gentoo-sources will be the recommended kernel after removing the other -sources.

Regarding 2.6 kernels - I've been running 2.6 kernels the last 6 months
at least and haven't experienced anything bad except the known broken
qlogic isp driver which causes system hangs occasionally. I'm also aware
that I'm a bit behind schedule keywording different kernels for alpha
but feel free to file bugs at http://bugs.gentoo.org if you think I need
a reminder :)

Regards,
Bryan Øtergaard
Gentoo/Alpha developer

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gentoo-alpha@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: Another installation instructions question [ In reply to ]
Hello Marnix,

>I've tried to build vanilla-sources, gentoo-sources, development-sources
>and gentoo-dev-sources (2.4 and 2.6). Building wasn't a problem, but Milo
>won't boot any kernel newer than 2.4.21 on my XLT-300. It just hangs after
>jumping to the kernel. Eventually, I got tired of it and stopped trying.
>But if you get any results with the 2.6 kernels, please post a message on
>this list; I may try again.
>
Just to let you know, my 2.4.28 compiled "vanilla-sources" kernel boots!
The first time I tried, I compiled it with "Alcor/XLT" selected as my
subarchitecture, and it did exactly as you said (hang right after
"jumping to kernel"). But when I re-compiled it with the only change
being selecting "generic" instead of "Alcor/XLT", that one boots!

Here is my .config, in case you want to try it out on your side.

I'll be trying 2.6 soon, right after I have installed everything my
system needs to do its main job...

J-S

--
__________________________________________
Jean-Sébastien Guay jean_seb@videoton.ca
http://whitestar02.webhop.org/