Kiki Novak wrote:

>Hi,
>
>In response my last post, Joost Kremers suggested I use udev instead of
>devfs. Which means I have to use a 2.6 kernel.
>
>Until now, I've always worked with stock out-of-the-box kernels without much
>(or more exactly: any) recompiling. Correct me if I'm wrong, but after
>googling around a bit, it looks to me as if replacing my 2.4.26 kernel that
>came with Slackware 10.0 with the 2.6.7 included in the 'testing' directory
>on CD 2 is not exactly a trivial operation. I also read
>the /boot/README-initrd, which confused me even more.
>
>Question: can someone point me to some *reliable* doc on the subject? Some
>nice and easy step by step tutorial that shows how to replace a 2.4 kernel
>on Slackware by a 2.6 *without* being written for Doctors in Computer
>Science? I don't care about reading *much*, I care about reading right
>things that avoid hair-pulling as much as possible.
>
>(And all this only because I wanted to use a USB stick AND a camera... Days
>like these, I really get the hang of OS X -> 1/2 joking)
>
>Cheers,
>
>Niki Kovacs
>
>
The instructions in README-initrd are just about right (just did this on
a Gateway Solo, updating 2.4.26 to 2.6.7 about an hour ago); the only
thing you really have to worry about is what file system you have (if
you have reiserfs -- as I do -- the instructions are pretty plain).

What I did was

installpkg kernel-generic-2.6.7-i486-1.tgz
installpkg kernel-modules-2.6.7-i486-2.tgz
installpkg kernel-source-2.6.7-noarch-1.tgz
installpkg alsa-driver-1.0.5a_2.6.7-i486-1.tgz
cd /boot
mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.7 -m reiserfs
vi /etc/lilo.conf
add the stuff on the second page of the README.initrd exactly as shown
lilo
init 6

Works just fine.

Per the WARNING in the directory, I did not install the headers.

That'll get your kernel replaced, then look in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and
see if you can just turn on whatever module you need for your USB ports
(if they're there, fat dumb and happy; if not, then you have to fiddle
with rebuilding the kernel which is, for now, beyond my understanding
but I'm sure somebody will give you advice on how to do that).