Redhat 7.3 Kernel Upgrade 1

[psylentriot]

Hi-

I just upgraded my redhat 7.3 kernel to the most recent version, which i believe is 2.4.20 or something like that (is there a command I can use to get the current kernel version?)

In the process of updating, two things happened:

1) GRUB added a new boot entry for the new kernel, and left an old one for the old kernel. Thats fine, I know how to get rid of the old one (should I?).

2) My sound went out on the new kernel. If I boot with the old kernel, sound works perfectly. On the new one, there aren't any errors or anything, it just wont work at all. Is there some way to troubleshoot this? In the hardware configuration scheme when I logged on as root, it says under the sound cards my sound card, and even lists the driver for it, and for dev it says "N/A". I ran /usr/sbin/soundconfig
and It said it found the card, but the "test sounds" wouldnt play. I put in a CD and it said it was playing, but it didnt (there was no audio). I know all the cables are plugged in fine. Can someone please tell me what I should do to get my sound working again?

By the way- the reason i upgraded the kernel was for ntfs compatibility so i could run my mp3s, so running the old kernel is last resort.

Thank you for your time

 

[jrjuiliano]

I would keep the old entry around for a while until you are sure everything is OK. After that you can get rid of the grub entry and the old kernel files.

Are you using alsa? I'm not sure about redhat, but alsa generally is not compiled to the kernel, especially on a freshly built one. Try rebuild alsa and see if that fixes it. It will rebuild the modules for you into the new kernel structure.

I think you can get the current kernel version with "uname":

http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/uname1.html

Hope that helps.

J.R.

 

[psylentriot]

Thank you for your help jrjuiliano-- however...

I tried using which alsa at the command line only to find out that it doesnt exist.

When running /usr/sbin/sndconfig it tries to play the sound, and a little thump comes out from my speakers (granted it is VERY tiny). When I run esd at the command prompt, it says 16 and 8 bit sounds failed. This is all on the newer kernel.

On the old kernel, when I run esd at the command prompt, it sounds fine, but so do all the rest of the sounds.

Is it possible that the new kernel is missing a configuration file for the sounds?

In what directory is the new kernel located (just because I'd like to know)

BTW- for what its worth, my sound is an integrated i810_audio *onboard* and my chip is an Athlon XP 2000+

Thank you for your time

 

[jrjuiliano]

Hmmm,

I'm only used to playing with alsa, so my esd knowledge is even more limited than my alsa knowledge!

The kernels are located in /usr/src/ there is only a symlink to /usr/src/linux, which will link to /usr/src/<whatever-linux-kernel-version-is>.

Is it set up as a module? Wouldn't that be the intel8x0 module?

J.R.

 

[psylentriot]

J.R.-
It is set up under /etc/modules.conf . I'm kind of a linux noobie, but I understand the things that are similar to MS-DOS.
I dont know what a symlink is Could you please tell me?

The line that shows the module's configuration for the sound is:

alias sound-slot-0 i810_audio

about 3 lines later:


post-install sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc - L >/dev/null 2>&1 || :

pre-remove sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc - S >/dev/null 2>&1 || :


sound-slot-0 is the only entry to have this... considering the USB controllers and ethernet card are both in there too. Wierd?? Maybe I should edit .aumixrc?? I dont have any idea what those options above are.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jrjuiliano]

Sorry I can't answer the esd questions. I'll look and see but my systems are running Gentoo with alsa and it's a bit different.

At any rate a &quot;symlink&quot; is just a symbolic link. Like a shortcut in Windows. You can see what the link is linking to when you do &quot;ls -l /usr/src/linux&quot;. The output on mine, for instance is:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Feb 20 04:32 /usr/src/linux -> linux-2.4.20

you can build the link by using ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.4.20 /usr/src/linux

Have you compiled the new kernel yet?

J.R.

 

[psylentriot]

I didnt compile the new kernel, it came in RPM format. Being the windows fella I've always been- I figured that the installation of the kernel using up2date would be the equivalent of letting windows update handle things.....
is compiling the kernel easy? should I go back and reinstall it?

-jens

 

[jrjuiliano]

Hi,

It's not &quot;hard&quot; per se, but it can be a little daunting.

If you need to compile the kernel you should get online at redhat or google for instructions on compiling the kernel. It's a pretty neat experience to be able to include and exclude what you want when you want it!

Try here:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/Kernel-HOWTO.html

Kind of long winded, but worth the effort. There might be better and quicker information on the net somewhere.

Basically you have to go to /usr/src/linux and do a make menuconfig, then choose options, either as built-in support or modules, and then save it. Make dep, make clean, copy it to the /boot partition and set up grub or LILO to find it correctly (although it seems that part's already been done for you).

As far as Up2Date goes I'm not sure, but pretty confident that the kernel and kernel options are not compiled for you. But wouldn't that be nice!

J.R.

 

[psylentriot]

What I think I'ma do is:
Delete the old kernel.
Attempt to update again
Hope that solves problem

....

If that doesnt work, I will be very angry and attempt to recompile the source, which by the way, where do I get the source?

...and it tells me to take /usr/src/redhat/.config
it doesnt exist, for reasons unknown. spooky. Any idea where that might be?