On Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 07:19:34AM -0800, David Liontooth wrote: > > Hi -- I have a machine, Linux ancient 2.6.36.2 #1 SMP Sun Dec 26 06:19:57 > PST 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux.
This is not a Debian kernel. You either built it yourself, or you got it from some foreign Linux distribution. > I can install a new kernel, but it won't boot into any of the new kernels: > > root@ancient:~# update-grub > Generating grub.cfg ... > Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-16-amd64 > Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-16-amd64 > Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-6-amd64 > Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-6-amd64 > Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.36.2 > Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.36.1 Why not? What happens when you try to boot one of them? Are they missing whatever features you needed to build a custom kernel to support? > I also cannot upgrade udev: > > root@ancient:~# apt --fix-broken install > Reading package lists... Done > Building dependency tree > Reading state information... Done > Correcting dependencies... Done > ... > The following additional packages will be installed: > udev > The following packages will be upgraded: > udev > 1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 476 not upgraded. > Need to get 0 B/1,112 kB of archives. > After this operation, 6,381 kB of additional disk space will be used. > Do you want to continue? [Y/n] > Reading database ... 64907 files and directories currently installed.) > Preparing to unpack .../udev_232-25+deb9u13_amd64.deb ... > Since release 198, udev requires support for the following features in > the running kernel: > > - inotify(2) (CONFIG_INOTIFY_USER) > - signalfd(2) (CONFIG_SIGNALFD) > - accept4(2) > - open_by_handle_at(2) (CONFIG_FHANDLE) > - timerfd_create(2) (CONFIG_TIMERFD) > - epoll_create(2) (CONFIG_EPOLL) You could rebuild your custom kernel to include those features. Assuming they existed in 2.6.36. But... that says deb9. That's a *whole* lot newer than your running system. Did you honestly expect a Debian 9 package to work on your Debian 6 (or whatever it is) system? > I'm not finding udev packages in pool. Where are they located in the > repository tree? Is there an intermediate udev package that would allow me > for instance to boot linux 3.16.0-6-amd64? You're running a version that's so old that I wouldn't expect to find its packages in the normal locations. You'd be better off using snapshot.debian.org and downloading the obsolete versions that you require by hand. > Finally. I tried using another machine to download udev 215-17+deb8u7 -- it > lets me download libudev 215-17+deb8u7, but even just downloading the udev > package is blocked by the dependency check. > > apt-get install --download-only udev=215-17+deb8u7 <== fails > apt-get install --nodeps --download-only udev=215-17+deb8u7 > E: Command line option --nodeps is not understood in combination with the > other options And this one says deb8. Use dpkg -i to install individual Debian package files in these old versions. "apt-get install ./filename" didn't exist back then. The old way was to use dpkg -i, which led you to an incomplete state, and then use "apt-get -f install" with no package names to let apt-get try to fix the incomplete state. Or... you could install a newer version of Debian from scratch. It might be simpler than trying to salvage this Frankendebian installation. (You've got mixed up versions all over the place. I don't think this is fixable in any sane way.) I'm still curious why you needed a custom kernel, though. You'll want to solve that mystery. If there's something *unique* about this machine, which would prevent a clean installation of Debian 11, you'll need to address it, whatever it may be.
