Migrating from 2.4 to 2.6

Updates

• March 5, 2004 - New reference to Sandino Flores Moreno's website where you can find alternative configurations and some interesting patches.
• January 20, 2004 - Now running 2.6.1. Small change in configuration for CPU frequency scaling.

Introduction

The steps described here should work for any kernel 2.4 setup. The migration is divided into the following steps:

• Step 0: Before you begin
• Step 1: module-init-tools
• Step 2: The new kernel
• Step 3: USB Module Name Changes
• Step 4: sysfs
• Step 5: ALSA Sound
• Step 6: First Boot
• Step 7: NVIDIA Graphics
• References - Some links for more information

Step 0: Before you begin

My machine is a Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop and if you install Fedora Core 1 on it, most of the things work without effort. For more information on Linux on the Inspiron 8500/8600 you may want to check out Diwaker's notes or Diego's notes.

The wireless card may be slightly problematic if you have a Dell TrueMobile 1300/1400 or an Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 miniPCI card. I have a Dell TrueMobile 1150 whose drivers (orinoco) are available and works without trouble. To get the other cards to work you may find NdisWrapper useful. I've heard of it being used successfully with 2.6.0 and the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 card.

Backing Up
The upgrade requires a few modifications to various config files. Just to be safe, it would be a good idea to copy these files to a safe location so that reverting back to your existing setup is easy. The files are:

• /etc/rc.sysinit
• /etc/init.d/halt
• /etc/fstab

Now it's time to get down to work. By the way, so far you have not affected your current setup at all. In fact, only in Step 3 do we begin modifications that will affect your current setup.

Step 1: module-init-tools

      $ tar -xvzf module-init-tools-0.9.15-pre4.tar.gz
      $ cd module-init-tools-0.9.15-pre4
      $ ./configure --prefix=/
      $ make moveold
      $ make
      $ make install
      $ ./generate-modprobe.conf /etc/modprobe.conf
    

Step 2: The new kernel

      $ cd /usr/src
      $ bunzip2 -c linux-2.6.0.tar.bz2 | tar -xv
      $ cd linux-2.6.0
    

      $ make xconfig
      $ make
      $ make modules
      $ make modules_install
    

      $ make install
    

    title Linux 2.6.0 
	root (hd0,2)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.0 ro root=LABEL=/ acpi=on 
	initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.0.img
    

Patchwork
There are various functionality-enhancing patches already available for 2.6, most notable of which is swsusp which provides Windows' Hibernate like functionality. I haven't experimented with that yet, will update this doc when I do. The patch is available at swsusp.sourceforce.net.

Step 3: USB Module Name Changes

First, open /etc/modprobe.conf and replace occurrences of usb-uhci with uhci-hcd (this will probably be at one place, changing alias usb-controller1 usb-uhci to alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd).

Also, change all instances of mousedev to usbmouse and instances of keybdev to usbkbd.

Now repeat the mousedev and keybdev replacements in /etc/rc.sysinit.

Step 4: sysfs

First, create a /sys directory and add the following line to /etc/fstab:
none    /sys    sysfs    defaults    0 0

Second, edit /etc/init.d/halt and change
awk '$2 ~ /^\/$|^\/proc|^\/dev/{next} to
awk '$2 ~ /^\/$|^\/proc|^\/sys|^\/dev/{next}.

Now for some changes to /etc/rc.sysinit:

• Change all occurences of
  /proc/ksyms
  to
  /proc/kallsyms
  (This has little to do with sysfs, but should be done anyway)
• Add
  mount -f /sys
  below
  mount -f /proc
• Add
  mount -n -t sysfs /sys /sys
  below
  mount -n -t proc /proc /proc

Step 5: ALSA Sound

Open /etc/modprobe.conf and delete any lines that look like any of the following:

      options i810_audio clocking=48000
      alias sound-slot-0 i810_audio
      install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe [...blah blah...]
      remove  sound-slot-0 [...blah blah...]
    

      alias char-major-116 snd
      alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
      alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
      alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
      alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
      alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
      alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
    

install snd-card-0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-card-0 && { /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :; }

remove snd-card-0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || :; } ; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-card-0

Step 6: First Boot

However, if you have an nvidia graphics card and use their binary driver some extra effort is required. NVidia drivers need to be installed so boot into console mode, i.e., without an X server. To prevent the X server from automatically starting hit 'a' on the grub screen after selecting the appropriate entry. On the command prompt, add 3 and then hit Enter. What this does is causes the system to boot into runlevel 3 (no X server) instead of 5 (X server).

Step 7: NVIDIA Graphics

You have two options. One is to download the drivers from nvidia and the corresponding .README and .diff files from http://www.minion.de/. The README explains things quite well and worked for me quite smoothly.

Alternatively, instead of doing the patchwork manually you can download the patched nvidia driver binaries from http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/linux-2.6/.

Once installed, then start the X server by:
$ init 5

References

• New functionality in 2.6 - The post-halloween document nicely summarizes the major changes between 2.4 and 2.6
• Sandino Flores Moreno - Get an alternative configuration and some interesting patches for 2.6. Pay special attention to alps.patch and synaptics-touchpad-X11 which enable a faked wheel over a little area of the touchpad (this would be useful if you have an ALPS touchpad on your laptop. Dell i8500 and i8600's do.
• Migrating to 2.6 - Also talks about upgrading to 2.6 from a RedHat 9 system. Quite similar to this document.
• KernelNewbies.org - As the name suggests!