black screen is usually caused by bad framebuffer (be it bad kernel, bad setting, bad graphics card, etc)

modify your lilo.conf file and remove the vga settings line, or set it to vga=normal

you can pass this option at the boot parameter (so if the option is slack, i would highlight slack and then type vga=normal)

if that doesn't work, boot with the slack recovery cd (disk 2) and make your modifications

I think this is exellent thread, and should be MUST read for everybody before installation 2.6 kernels.
If you care about your time, read this first ,specially page 2 and 4 answers. and you will be quikly in working 2.6 kernel.
Maybe some moderator can post this topic for some fixed first place for some time.

Thanks my friend...and thanks to all of the members who contributed to make this a successful guide.

Yes...

The problem seems to lie in the agp-gart module... when the fglrx module does not use agp-gart (the systems or internal) X works fine only without 3D.... but when I tell it to use the module then all I get is a black screen after startx.... it worked in 2.4.... also when I use the radeon driver in the same respect it also creates a black screen only with the radeon driver it locks up at the black screen.

any help?

Problem Patching

I try to patch kernel 2.6.0 to 2.6.1 located in /usr/src/linux-2.6.0 and a symlink named /usr/src/linux

I use
patch -p0 < patch-2.6.1

and I get diff error

root@?????:/usr/src# patch -p0 < patch-2.6.1
can't find file to patch at input line 4
Perhaps you used the wrong -p or --strip option?
The text leading up to this was:
--------------------------
|diff -Nru a/CREDITS b/CREDITS
|--- a/CREDITS Thu Jan 8 23:00:24 2004
|+++ b/CREDITS Thu Jan 8 23:00:24 2004
--------------------------
File to patch:

Help me

its patch -p1 not p0

'bzip2 -dc 2.6.1-patch.bz2 | patch -p1'

that works too!

Huge big thanks to everyone who wrote helpful stuff in this thread and specifically the original authour !

I've been pulling my hair out trying to get 2.6 working for Suse and Redhat, some of the numerous problems I had

Kernel Panic, Blank screen (vga issues), completely wiped out 2.4 kernel, modules issues by the ton etc. etc. etc.

Well, I finally decided to go back to good old Slackware, something I ran as a simple webserver for years and as a devbox desktop for a month or so.

Well, whada-ya-know, I got up and running with sound & network and no module errors in about 6 hours including install, thanks to some info in this thread.

The most important bit of advice once you get the kernel installed I read was about modprobe and lsmod to check if you can load a module, check if it's then loaded and after, either comment it out of rc.modules or add it - perfect !

Just another thing, if you installed slackware as I did with the bare.ide (think that's what it's called) kernel, I found the best method to install the 2.6 kernel for me was :-

Back ups (a bit extreme, but anyway) :-

The whole of your /boot folder
/etc/lilo.conf
/etc/rc.d/rc.modules
/etc/fstab

Then


make mrproper

then copy your .config if you have one - I took the 2.4.2 config file from my slackware 9.1 /boot folder

make menuconfig

I've found that it's best to leave a lot of the following as defaults at first :- character devices, file types & block devices, but as stated numerous times, make sure your partition type is compiled into the kernel

make bzImage

make modules

make modules_install

cp System.map /boot/System-2.6.0.map
cp arch/xxx/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.0
cp .config /boot/config-2.6.0
cd /boot
rm System.map config
ln --symbolic System-2.6.0.map System.map
ln --symbolic vmlinuz-2.6.0 vmlinuz
ln --symbolic config-2.6.0 config

I'm not sure whether the config file is neccessary, but I'm trying to keep the /boot folder tidy as it was for the 2.4.2 kernel install I had.

In addition, I'll link in my old kernel as vmlinuz1 in case of issues

ln --symbolic vmlinuz-2xxx vmlinuz1

Then a simple matter of editing lilo.conf, but making an additional entry to add the old kernel in and also to change the vga setting to vga=normal just in case - you can always add a decent resolution in after.

I think the biggest problem I had with Suse and Redhat was the initrd file and trying to create it.

My default slackware 9.1 doesn't have any initrd file, which is great if you ask me. Better of without it.

Slackware is just about perfect for me now, I have just about enough knowledge to get it configured.
Boots about 10 times quicker than RedHat or Suse, has a nice uncluttered Gnome menu and on a full install (2 gig) and compiles pretty much anything without all the usual dependency crap I get with Suse or Redhat.

Now all I need to do :-

get samba working (giving me grief)
get the nvidia drivers installed
try to get my usb storage pen working

And I'm good to go !

Regarding the new module tools -
DaOne - "However...I do believe that this is NOT backwards compatable. So your old kernel may not work if you install this if you are not careful...maybe someone else has more info on this."

I will tell my story.

I decided to try installing 2.6.0 (unwisely) before doing the sensible thing, which is to come here to linuxquestions and seek information. But then again, I live dangerously (not on servers, just workstations).

I got the kernel to boot just fine. But then I wanted to see if I could go back to the old 2.4.20 kernel.
For some reason the i2c modules, or the lmsensors package (not sure wich) modules got hosed. On boot I would get "Oops" messages (where there is a kernel error, and it shows contents of registers,stack, and whatnot).
To fix this, I reinstalled the i2c package, and recompiled lmsensors.I have an Asus P4B533, so I went through the process of unhiding the ASB100 chip, and lmsensors works once again.

Now to put this in perspective, all I did was boot 2.6.0, make neccesary changes, then boot 2.4.20.

What happened is the lmsensors modules worked in 2.6.0. Then they caused problems when the 2.4.20 kernel was used again.

But I can't tell if this is attributed to the new module tools used with 2.6.0.
It could also be that I used a module that I compiled with a 2.4.20 kernel. I just wanted to see if it would work in 2.6.0, and it did. But the modules may have somehow been damaged in the process, so they woul no longer function correctly with 2.4.20 kernel.

Who knows?

I should add this important note:

I am using Slackware 9.0 and not 9.1. If anyone is going to try this, don't forget to update/install these packages. You can find these listed in the "changes" file of the 2.6.0 kernel sources :

jfsutils-1.1.3
module-init-tools-0.9.14
oprofile-0.6
quota-3.09

Now I'm smiling !

Nvidia drivers and USB pen working after a bit of kernel tweaking.
Kernel is also pretty small at 1,13 Meg and my system has never run Linux this well or this fast. Not one single module error.

One last issue, which isn't really a biggie, the Framebuffer Lilo thing.

I still can't boot at the 1024x768 which the default 2.4.2 kernel would boot at, no matter what I try. Get the black screen and at one point, after fiddling, got a Frequency out of Range error on my Monitor

In my kernel, Drivers -> Graphics I have :-

Support for Frame Buffer devices - y
VGA 16 colour support - y
Vesa VGA graphics support - y
Nvidia Riva Support - M

Console Display Driver Support -->
Video Mode Selection Support - y
Framebuffer Console Support - y
Select Compiled in Fonts - y
VGA 8x8 Font - y
VGA 8x16 Font - y

Logo Configuration -->
everying set to y

I can live with a lower res display, but it would be nice to mess around with background pictures and stuff like that.


EDIT: oops - just checked out jymbo's info on page 2 of this thread - DOH - will try edit .config manually to add those options.

EDIT AGAIN: options are already in .config, must be something else confliction with it - perhaps the riva option as a module is causing the problem ?

I have a quick question...really noobish as this is my first recompile, hopefully you guys can help. Everything works out great until I run /sbin/lilo. When I do that I get the following error:
Fatal: open /boot/vmlinuz.old: file or directory does not exist.

So, I try mkdir ~/vmlinuz.old and it gives me the error
Fatal: /boot/vmlinuz.old: neither a reg file or block device.

I've searched around here and haven't found anything, and google hasn't solved my problems either. Any ideas?

I cured my blank screen problem by disabling boot logos - I didn't change anything else.

Salted:
cd /boot
cp vmlinuz vmlinuz.old
lilo should run fine now.

With the 2.6.0 kernel, all my old rc.firewall scripts won't start saying there's a problem with my ip tables. What should I do ?

Before going from the default slackware 9.1 kernel to 2.6.1, would it be a good idea to update everything first with swaret? Since it needs updated module-init-tools, make, binutils, etc..

Hey Guys First post here hope i dont look to dumb but i have followed these instructions to a T and framebuffer will not work even with it compiled in thru the kernel with both new fonts and sound live card wont load along with the usb core i copied the config of the slackware cd out of the adaptec.s dir and added smp support and framebuffer support which i thought would already been there since i used a config that had it enabled kinda lost as whats happing here some help would be aprrecaited