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Upgrading the Kernel (sid, woody)

• Q. What steps are necessary to upgrade a Woody system from Linux 2.2.x kernel to a 2.4.x?
  • A.
    • 1. Run the command "apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.x[ -y ]", where x is the latest minor release number (currently 18) and -y is optionally defined optimized version (e.g. -686, for the latest Intel/AMD processors).
    • 2. Update your boot manager. The kernel-image packages offer to update ["LILO"] for you. If you are running multi-boot or using another boot loader like ["GRUB"] you may want to do this outside of the install process.
• Q. I want to patch the Kernel (woody,2.4.20) for using AES-Loop-Devices. What do I have to do?
  • A.

Boot manager issues

In case of ["LILO"] boot manager:

In case of ["GRUB"] boot manager:

• Q. I just upgraded to the 2.4 kernel from a 2.2 or 2.0 series kernel, and I get an kernel panic error saying /root= missing, halfway into the boot. My old kernel still works without any problems though. What's going on?
  • A. The Debian 2.4 series kernels use an initial RAM disk (initrd) to load part of the kernel at boot time ... This is an error that could show up if you've used dist-upgrade to migrate from a previous Debian release (i.e. Potato).
    • ["LILO"] Add the appropriate initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4 to your lilo.conf and rerun lilo.

      ["GRUB"] Modify the /boot/grub/menu.lst to include the proper initrd= setting. You do not need to re-run grub-

• Q. I am trying to use devfs with devfsd and grub-install is complaining.

  • A. If you have old /dev/hd? entries in your /boot/grub/devices.map grub-install will complain. The solution is to delete the devices.map and rerun grub-install

*devfsd is a small daemon that sets up all of the old dev entries for compatibility with older programs. http:''/packages.debian.org/devfsd

Troubleshooting/Debugging