2005-10-15 Software

I upgraded my desktop from Slackware 10.1 to 10.2. Everything seemed to work – just follow the instructions in the UPGRADE.txt file. But now I discovered that USB is not handled correctly. No more external USB drives. Huh? I’ll have to look into this.

See comments on this page for the story about conflicting kernel modules messing up my USB access.

It took me more than two months to realize that the default X11 setup was wrong, too. See 2005-12-27 Software.

2005-12-27 Software

​#Software

Comments

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I’m in the middle of upgrading from (a very modified) Slackware 10.1 to 10.2 right now. Looks like we both have great taste in operating systems, Alex 😄

– GreyWulf 2005-10-16 10:53 UTC

GreyWulf

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Heh. 😄 Here’s what I found:

root@confusibombus:~# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: P
ath_pci                38160   1
ath_rate_onoe           3880   0  [ath_pci]
wlan                   81240   1  [ath_pci ath_rate_onoe]
ath_hal               133744   1  [ath_pci]
root@confusibombus:~# modprobe usb-storage
modprobe: Can't locate module usb-storage
root@confusibombus:~# uname -r
2.4.29
root@confusibombus:~# ls -l /boot/v*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root      18 2005-10-15 02:47 /boot/vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-ide-2.4.31
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1256566 2005-06-06 05:37 /boot/vmlinuz-ide-2.4.31
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1341464 2004-11-08 08:24 /boot/vmlinuz-ide-acpi-2.4.26

It seems that there’s a new kernel 2.4.31 around by my lilo is still booting an old 2.4.29.

– Alex Schroeder 2005-10-16 13:57 UTC

Alex Schroeder

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I’ve just finished upgrading and it worked a charm. Mind you, I used

slackupdate.sh -r -l 2 -u slackware-10.2

instead of the “official” route. I’m now in the middle up upgrading the “non-standard” packages as well.

It looks to me like you are indeed still using kernel-2.4.29, but the upgrade will have installed the new kernel headers. They (of course) won’t work with the old kernel. Hence, no USB.

Your ls for _boot has been cut off, but I’m guessing boot_vmlinux is symlinked to your old kernel, not the new one.

I suggest you edit _etc_lilo.conf by hand and add in the new kernel, then run

lilo

by hand. Reboot into the new kernel and all should be well. If it works, you can alway clean out the old kernel, put the symlink over and tidy up _etc_lilo.conf later. *Always* remember to re-run lilo though, or it’s bye bye bootloader 😄

Hope that helps!

– GreyWulf 2005-10-16 14:16 UTC

GreyWulf

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Sure enough, when I booted the 2.4.31 kernel, USB storage devices started working again. But wireless stopped working! The cause was easy to find: The wireless card needs this custom ath0 module, which I had to make and install. Worked flawlessly. Phew!

– Alex Schroeder 2005-10-16 14:17 UTC

Alex Schroeder

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grin: All’s well that ends well, eh?

Is is my imagination, of is 10.2 significantly faster than 10.1? I’m even running KDE and it’s blazing along........

– GreyWulf 2005-10-16 14:18 UTC

GreyWulf

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I have no idea. I rarely use my desktop these days; I’m on a laptop with about ¼ the CPU power and about ¼ the RAM of my desktop, and a non-free operating system. ;)

The desktop has been blazing along for a long time, now.

– Alex Schroeder 2005-10-16 15:17 UTC

Alex Schroeder