Update: kernel 2.6.0-test1

OK, I’ve got it all up and running now. I’m kinda tired, though, so not many details right now.
n
nHere’s what my major stumbling blocks were, and how I fixed them:

(1) I was unable to allocate any terminals once I got X running. Cause: no entries in /dev/pts. Solution: I mounted the “devpts” filesystem: “mount -t devpts none /dev/pts” and I also added a similar line to /etc/fstab.

(2) I was unable to get USB working. I had compiled the modules for all 3 controllers, but I hadn’t loaded any of them. So I modprobe’d ehci-hcd and uhci-hcd (USB 2.0 controller and USB 1.1 controller, respectively), and then modprobe’d “hid” to get the mouse working. Restarted X, and my buttons 4-7 were working (wheel + mouse6 and mouse7)

(3) I’m still having some trouble with latency and preemption with XMMS. I haven’t figured out what’s going on yet. To minimize the effect, I hdparm -c 1 -d 1 /dev/hd? (which turns on DMA and 32-bit addressing for all of my fixed discs). I’ve tried it with both a preemptable kernel, and a non-preemptable kernel. It still skips when flipping to other virtual desktops.

(4) I had forgotten to modprobe snd-pcm-oss and snd-emu10k1 (the module name changed from the 2.4.20 kernel I was using). A quick edit of /etc/modules and that’s fixed too.

GRUB was easy to install. “grub-install –root-directory=/boot /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc” was all it took. Then, since I’m running Debian, I ran update-grub, and edited /boot/boot/grub/menu.lst to fix my boot options & define a default (the old kernel, until I was sure 2.6 would work).

I think that’s it. And I think I’ve also figured out why my test box wasn’t working right under 2.6; I may try it again when I get up. Or tonight at work; I haven’t decided yet.