Shawn Fertch wrote: > When upgrading from a 2.4 to 2.6 kernel, can I use a .config file from 2.4? > > Also, what would be the procedural steps to do the upgrade? > > Can I do everything under the 2.4 kernel, or do I need to be in the 2.6? > > Sad to say I've never done a kernel recompile or upgrade in all the > years I've been using Linux.... I just did this tonight finally on a remote production Debian box - went fairly well. You can usually do the following: 1.) download newest kernel source tree - untar and go into the source directory. 2.) cp /boot/config-2.4.xx .config (where xx is your current version) 3.) make oldconfig - answer when prompted about new/changed configuration items - most answers will be 'N' 4.) make 5.) su 6.) make modules_install 7.) cp .config /boot/config-2.6.xx 8.) cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.xx 9.) cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.xx 10.) Edit lilo or grub config files to load new kernel boot record into MBR. 11.) reboot At least that's what works for me - I'm not saying it's that simple. With a major release upgrade you'll want to carefully compare the config files between the working 2.4 version and the one you get after make oldconfig (or make menuconfig/xconfig if you prefer) - for example, I had to manually redo all my Netfilter (iptables) options in my 2.6 config file because "make oldconfig" didn't enable a lot of the options I had in my 2.4 kernel for some reason - rebooted and my firewall didn't come up. Other than that though it went well. Here's a nice tip if you use lilo on a remote server. If you run: lilo -v lilo -v -R LinuxNEW where LinuxNEW is a new entry in lilo.conf - then the next reboot will boot into the kernel defined in the LinuxNEW label and if it fails and you get a kernel panic the next reboot will boot back into your usual working default kernel image. Hope that helps, Josh