[lug] debian with 2.4 kernel

[David Anselmi]

Hugh Brown wrote:
[...]
> 
> I did boot into single user mode afterward (if you look below).  Still
> locked up.  This has been an amazing hassle thus far.

Well, at least you're persistant ;-)  But better error descriptions 
might get you better answers.

If your Debian 2.2 system is still working, I would focus on that. 
There is no need to do a new install just to upgrade to a 2.4 kernel.

Boot the Debian 2.2 kernel.  Do an apt-get update and an apt-get 
dselect-upgrade (gets you the newest stuff -- I assume you're using 
stable sources on the Internet).  Updating isn't really necessary, but 
it should work easily.

Now add a 2.4 kernel (you might want to purge out any other kernel stuff 
you have -- IIRC the 2.2 kernel from the installer isn't listed in 
dselect so you won't accidentally remove it.  If I'm wrong, just don't 
purge that one).  When you're ready:

apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.18-1-686

This seems to be the latest stable kernel.  The installer will tell you 
things about now using initrd (and probably install some related 
packages).  Pay attention but don't let it adjust your lilo.conf file or 
install a boot block.

When the install is done, edit lilo.conf to make sure there are stanzas 
for both the old 2.2 kernel and the new 2.4 kernel.  The image line 
should refer to links like /vmlinuz and /vmlinuz.old (check / to see 
what's there).  The 2.4 stanza should have initrd=/initrd.img (again, 
check what's there).  Now run lilo and make sure there are no errors. 
Then reboot and select the Debian 2.4 kernel.

Since you've been through this before I assume it won't work.  So tell 
us what happens.  Does it print LILO at first?  Does a lot of kernel 
output scroll by?  If it freezes before a line that says something about 
init, what does the screen say (the more the better though it may not be 
easy to capture it all).

You'd have saved a lot of speculation if you'd said more than "it freezes".

Some other things to think about.  If Knoppix works, compare it's kernel 
output (use dmesg) to the 2.4 kernel that doesn't work.  You can try a 
386 kernel (uninstall the 686 kernel first) and try that too.  You can 
also look at linux-laptop.net to see what others have been through.

Other clues such as this:

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0202.1/1557.html

can be found on google.

Good luck!

Dave