Recipe 10.4. Upgrading to the Latest Stable Version of the 2.4 Kernel

10.4.1 Problem

You've heard there have been many updates and patches to the kernel. You would like to update your old kernel to the latest stable version (e.g., from 2.4.22 to 2.4.25), because this is the easiest way to get all the updates and patches.

10.4.2 Solution

Back up of all of your data, and have a bootable rescue disk at hand.

Make hard copies of the outputs of dmesg, lscpi, cat /proc/cpuinfo, and lsusb.

Unpack the new kernel sources into a folder in your home directory, such as ~/src:

$ tar xvjf linux-2.4.25.tar.bz2

Edit the new kernel makefile (~/src/linux-2.4.25/Makefile), giving a custom value to EXTRAVERSION, such as EXTRAVERSION = -new-kernel.

All of the following commands are run from ~/src/linux-2.4.25:

$ make mrproper

If want to use your existing .config file, copy it to ~/src/linux-2.4.25 now and continue with this recipe. If not, go back to Recipe Recipe 10.3.

Run the following commands:.

$ make oldconfig

$ make dep

$ make bzImage

$ make modules

$ su

# make modules_install

# cp ~/src/linux-2.4.25/arch/i386/boot/bzImage  /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.25-new-kernel

# cp ~/src/linux-2.4.25/System.map /boot/System.map-2.4.25-new-kernel

Add the new kernel to your bootloader, reboot, and enjoy.

10.4.3 Discussion

http://lwn.net and http://kerneltrap.org are good sites for keeping on top of kernel news, changes, improvements, and problems.

10.4.4 See Also

This chapter's "Introduction," for where to get kernel sources and where to look for documentation
Recipe 10.2, for complete details on building and installing a kernel
The online help in the kernel configurator—almost every configuration item has an entry

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