Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Problems Running an Expeerimental Kernel

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Problems Running an Expeerimental Kernel

    I am in the process of moving from Kubuntu Feisty to Kubuntu Gutsy. My machine is a Dell XPS 410, 4GB of memory, on board HDA-Intel, Intel 6420 Core 2. I recently built an experimental kernel with a one parameter configuration change. When I execute the code most functions work with the important exception of no sound. I would like any suggestion about how to get sound working.

    I want to outline how I built and execute the kernel in the hope that someone will see an error that I made. I followed the build instructions in the web page "How To Compile A Kernel - The Ubuntu Way".My main deviation was to build the kernel in my home directory rather than in /usr/src. I worked with linux-source-2.6.22.tar.bz2 which I got via synaptic and config-2.6.22-14-generic which I got from /boot. I grabbed them immediately after installing Gutsy. Since I was building the kernel to demonstrate to myself that a 32 bit kernel could recognize all 4GB of my memory, I changed exactly one parameter in the configuration; I turned on CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=y. I then built the kernel using the commands:

    make-kpkg clean
    fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-64gb kernel_image kernel_headers.

    About an hour later, the build completed and I installed the resulting deb's.

    The final steps before the attempt to run were:

    1. Edit menu.lst to remove the "splash" option so I could see the messagesd and follow with grub-install.
    2. The other step was to change xorg.cong so that the display driver would be "nv" rather than "nvidia".

    When I tried to boot the kernel, there were problems because steps in the the init process failed calling routines in the rcX.d files that could not be found. They had to do with modules associated with VirtualBox and also powernowd. I went back to the original kernel and removed VirtualBox and powernowd and then was able to boot the new kernel.

    With the new kernel, I am able to do quite a few things. First, I am delighted that the kernel will recognize all of my 4GB of memory where the stock kernel only found 3GB. I was able to install and utilize the nvidia driver. KDE comes up and appears to work. Networking works. My USB printer works.

    The problem stumping me at the moment is a total lack of sound. No sound modules are loaded but they are there. There is no /proc/asound. There is no /dev/snd. KInfoCenter cannot find any information about the soundcard. However, KinfoCenter/PCI finds the Audio Device. So my question involves sound. How do I find out why no sound card is found? I ran aadebug but got almost no information.

    As a second-order question, am I missing something fundamental about running experimental kernels? It seems like a lot of hassle to go around changing /etc files to avoid problems with special modules and programs that have been installed, i.e., the stuff with the nvidia support, VirtualBox, and powernowd. Is there a more straight forward way to work with experimental kernels. Is this the reason that kernel updates via adept come with the same name as the kernel they replace?

    I apologize if this in an overly lengthy post.

    Many Thanks in Advance,
    Don

    #2
    Re: Problems Running an Expeerimental Kernel

    Well, you probably should've compiled it in /usr/src, because it's probably looking for the rc*.ds in your home. I have no idea, though.
    You can find information on sound by searching the forums. I think compiling ALSA fixes it, but I'm not sure.

    Personally, I wouldn't've resorted to compiling my kernel just to fix a few issues... Most of those probably could've been resolved by a less complicated method.
    For external use only.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Problems Running an Expeerimental Kernel

      I concur with SheeEttin -- I have some of the same hardware (Intel HDA, Intel CPU, Nvidia card) and it all works with out-of-the box kernels. Well, except for the Beta -RT kernel, but that's a different deal. :P

      Anyway, VMware player 2.0 installs and works perfectly, Audacity runs great -- I would encourage you to see if there is really any reason to invest all that energy into kernel-compiling.

      Comment

      Working...
      X