kernel upgrade

[shoefly]

we recently rented a server that came with 2.4.18 kernel. I tried enableing dma with a stock 2.4.27 kernel from kernel.org. I failed.
My question is in 2.4.18 sb uses initrd with cramfs for ext3 right? in 2.4.27 i should set CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD= to no right? then compile ext3 in to the kernel itself and should be all set.
Thanks in advance

[QT]

ServerBeach uses the standard Debian kernel, which does use a cramfs image for the initrd. You should probably check out the /boot/config-2.4.18-* file ,or even use it to configure your new kernel, as there may be other options aside from ext3 that are not compiled in by default.

:)

[shoefly]

i in fact did use the old config but i tried to compile the kernel with ext3 built-in. I didnt do mkinitrd. so im thinking that was my issue

[knightfoo]

You also need to apply a special cramfs patch and add "ramdisk_blocksize=4096" to your kernel command line in order to use cramfs on an initrd. This is included in the Debian kernel patches and you can easily rip it out and apply to other kernels. If you don't want to mess with this, you can write an alternate script to create the initrd filesystem and go with ext2 on the initrd.

-knightfoo

[shoefly]

thanks for the help, just went the easy way and used backports.org 2.4.27 kernel :) only reaosn we needed to recompile was because of dma on the kt400 chipset

[bow-wow]

If I was going to compile a custom kernel I think I would forgo the initrd altogether, since you can specify the relevant fs and chipset code. But backports is even easier, and that's the route I went as well.