system isn't booting!!

[Tarek_1]

Hi there,
i'm using RedHat 7.2 on a PIV pc. On it there's installed Oracle 9i.
In these days i have tried to recompile the kernel, 2.4.7-10 version, (it was my first time!!) in order to configure my internal modem. After that i rebooted the system and it doesn't boot! So i booted from floppy, recompiled again the kernel and again it doesn't boot. What should i do to boot again from harddisk? Is there a way to put the first kernel i have installed?
These are the commands i followed during kernel rebuild:
- cd /usr/src/linux-2.4.7
- make mrproper
- make xconfig
- make dep
- make clean
- make bzImage
- make modules
- make modules_install
- make install
- lilo -v
- reboot
The modem i was trying to configure is an internal pctel modem, and i was following these instructions (http://www.peacefulaction.org/sayamindu/pctel.html) which first need a kernel rebuild.
I hope someone can help me.
Regards
Tarek

[Oren Amit]

Hi,

RedHat uses the /boot directory to hold the kernel.
If you go thereyou will see a link
vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.4.7
System.map -> System.map-2.4.7
module-info -> /lib/modules/2.4.7/
What you need to do is change these links to your older version (the last one that worked).
Then reboot.
Good luck

[Oren Amit]

Forgot to rerun lilo.

[Tarek_1]

But when i rebuilded the kernel i think i have overwritten the old one. However i will check today and hope it works.
Thanks for now,
Tarek

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Tarek,

the first thing to do when changing *anything* to a kernel is to make a copy of the old kernel to have one to boot if the new kernel fails for any reason:

cp vmlinuz vmlinuz.old

If you reboot your system with the new kernel and get a kernel panic you have an alternative kernel to boot.

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Bill Thorsteinson]

Check the performance options
for swap file.
Defragement and set to a
fixed size.
We use 3/4Gb on our systems.

W2K fragments the disk like
crazy and fragments the swap
file.
This is a killer.

[Ted M Johnson_1]

I noticed on the driver website that you don't have to rebuild the kernel to use the modem. You should be able to do an insmod on the driver after you build it....

The other thing I noticed from the above post is that you didn't copy the RedHat default kernel config file over when you rebuilt the kernel. You might want to copy the config/kernel-2.4.7-??.i686.config file to the kernel source root directory and do a make oldconfig instead of a make xconfig.

Just a thought or two....good luck..

[Tarek_1]

System is booting now, i linked to the old kernel. The problem is I still have to recompile the kernel in order to configure the modem. Ted i checked well the modem documentation, i also tried to configure the modem before recompiling the kernel and i got /usr/src/linux/include/linux/modversions.h: no such file or directory, recompile your kernel first (of course /usr/src/linux is linked to linux-2.4.7-10. So what should i do to have a booting kernel for internal modem use?
Thanks again

[Ted M Johnson_1]

Ah. Try this....

- cd /usr/src/linux-2.4.7
- make mrproper
- make xconfig
- make dep

at this point you should have the modversions.h file :-)

the "make mrproper" deletes the modversions.h file.....