Migrating to Linux Kernel 2.6 in Debian

Audience

This document is intended for people running Debian on an x86 machine. If your hardware is supported straightaway by kernel 2.4, I *guess* there should not be much of a problem in upgrading to 2.6. My system is a P4 machine with no fancy hardware.

Requirements

A system running the unstable version of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. (I guess you could be using testing and still be able to follow the same procedure given here.)
Access to the packages in the repository either through a set of CDs or HTTP or FTP.

Procedure

It is really simple to migrate to the 2.6 version of the Linux kernel in Debian. This document is to show that the process is really simple. I spent a few days asking other people what the issues were, what actions I need to take, whether there are any caveats, etc. It turned out that there are none. But, please do read the README coming along with the package (/usr/share/doc/kernel-image-2.6.5-1-686/README.Debian.1st.gz). A few issues from the README are given below. Here is what one needs to do (as root).

apt-get the 2.6 kernel image for your processor. At the time of writing, 2.6.5 was the latest stable version. So, I did
```
# apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.5-1-686
```
There are versions for several x86 based SMP and non-SMP computers. Just check the one suited for your computer and install it. It should be straightforward for other architectures as well.
Set up your bootloader. If you are using lilo, the apt-get install command would have automatically added a block to the file /etc/lilo.conf and run /sbin/lilo.
Reboot, and enter the world of Linux kernel 2.6 !!!

A few issues

A few issues to be considered (straight out of the README).

PS/2 Mice: If your PS/2 mouse does not work, make sure that the modules psmouse and mousedev are loaded.
AMD 768 erratum 10: If you have a motherboard with the AMD 768 chipset, and you are experiencing IDE errors or lock ups, then you should either connect a PS/2 mouse to the system or disable APIC. Refer to the following link for details: http://lists.insecure.org/lists/linux-kernel/2002/Sep/5966.html
mem= on 2.4.19 and later: mem=xxxM can no longer be used to enlarge the RAM that the kernel uses. You must specify the exact memory map. For example, Compaq Proliant users can specify mem=48M@16M if they 64M of memory.
80386 compatibility: DRM modules will not work on true 80386 processors. These drivers all assume that cmpxchg is available.
IDE bswap option: The bswap option is obsolete and may disappear in future. For the moment it does work provided that you disable dma with the nodma option.

User feedback

Baurjan Ismagulov <ibr AT ataCsHunEduTr> (replace upper case letters in the domain name with DOT and the lower case letter) says that in his case, PPPoE stopped working after upgrading. But the problem was solved on using new ppp, pppoe, and pppoeconf packages. Earlier, I had a note about using devfs. Thomas Stewart <thomas AT stewartsOrgUk> points out that devfs has been deprecated, and suggests using udev instead. apt-get install udev should work fine.

The following piece of information comes from Dr R (Chandra) Chandrasekhar <chandra AT eeUwaEduAu>. You might find this useful, if you are compiling your own kernel.

If you intend to use flash drives, de-select the following during "make xconfig":
```
      Block Devices -> Low Performance USB Block driver (BLK_DEV_UB)
      
```
There are clear explanations here and here. on why this is advisable until further development of the ub module.
If you have an nVidia card, de-select the following during "make xconfig":
```
       Graphics Support -> nVidia Riva support (FB_RIVA)
       Kernel Hacking -> Use 4Kb for kernel stacks instead of 8Kb (4KSTACKS)
       Processor Type and Features -> Local APIC support on uniprocessors (X86_UP_APIC)
       
```
To install the nVidia drivers, follow this HOWTO, and compile the drivers from the Debian packages after applying the vmalloc_reserve.patch during kernel build.

Last modified: Tue Jan 11 07:09:00 CST 2005