-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sat, 16 Oct 1999, John wrote:
> It seems an opportunity to upgrade to 2.2.7, and gain experience > - I think I understand the Howto and other literature - but now I > come to plan the work, things are not straightforward. i'd recommend 2.2.12 (the latest), although 2.2.7 might be my second choice. > If I try to download 2.2.7.tar.gz from ftp. kernel.org, can I use > dselect and should I? (dselect says ftp access method can produce > errors since it is not part of the standard dpkg package). The dselect ftp method is for downloading debs over ftp. I'd recommend using apt instead of that. In any case, that has nothing to do with downloading the kernel sources via ftp. Don't try using dselect. > According to the Howto the kernel should be in /usr/src/linux - it > seems to be in /usr/include/linux/2.0.36 on my box. Odd... What i'd recommend is to put the kernel into /usr/src/linux-version (where version is the version number, e.g. 2.2.7), and symlink /usr/src/linux to that directory. > Much is written about the benefits of being able to compile to ones > exact needs, and conserve memory etc. As a beginner, although I can > see what is in the present kernel, I don't understand what the various > packages do - in certain cases I know what I don't want (pcmcia for > example), but I certainly don't know what I need. This is one of the parts it's hard for us to help you with, because it depends on what hardware you have in your computer and what you plan on doing with it. For example, if you have no SCSI, disable SCSI support (except in a few cases). If you have no IDE drives, disable all that. Look at which modules you use (in modconf, probably) as a good indication of some of the features you should keep. And, on the other hand, you can probably remove the modules that you never use from the kernel. And whan in doubt, go with what you have in your present kernel. > Yet again, 2.2.7.tar.gz is 13M of I know not what and I've no idea how > to get rid of or avoid downloading any items (if I read the site > correctly, there's some 230 files). The ftp site doesn't seem to offer > a choice of archs - are all kernels basically the same? You just download the one big source package, even the files you don't need. It's a bit inconvienient (especially if you have to pay per MB), but it's generally felt that it would be more confusing and inconvienient to make separate tarballs for everything... > As I have CD-ROMS for RedHat and SuSE, could I use one of these? you probably could, but i'm not sure you'd want to... > I can see the kernel on the RedHat one, but as there are rpms for > Kernel-2.2.5-22.i386, -boot, cfg, -doc, -headers, -ibcs, -pcmcia, > -smp (2 rpms same description and approx same size) and -source-2.2 > I wouldn't know what to use if this is an option. SuSE isn't clear to > me! > > Any help will be appreciated. As a final note, check out the kernel-package package. It'll make a deb that you can install with dpkg, that will properly install the modules, help you a little with lilo, and various other random things it's easy to forget. - -- finger for PGP public key. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBOAj8wL7M/9WKZLW5AQG8XgQAomlHh1h09G3P2DU+HS/405gOW19kFn6l QVfoRnva+w/yuZhAyMLqiKnty2DYhrpL8ndt8RXYkwY4t/FcuFeipCcA0QS54Ght GF9X8hePK6jBDzNp4u61sxIccdf9vd0+NR6wjJ31ENRPthiauX3Hqu0I1TfUXIC+ P3L5CkgeSa0= =wv2k -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
