Slackware upgrade woes

Slackware upgrade woes

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

I have been sitting on this SW 10.1 distro for a few weeks, and
yesterday decided to upgrade my SW 10.0 distribution to the new release.
I chose to do it like Adam described, following the procedure Patrick
recommends in the file "upgrade.txt" on disk 1, and everything seemed to
go okay, except for the kernel. My old kernel (2.4.26) remained in
place, although the 2.4.29 source tree was put in place. Before
rebooting I copied the speakup.s kernel to /boot, but not replacing the
original yet, and made a new entry in /etc/lilo.conf, then ran lilo.

Well, speakup.s (2.4.29) more or less worked, but my sound drivers were
not working, and my networking did not work.

So being a big boy and all, I patched the 2.4.29 source tree from my
checkout script, fixed a couple of things, then compiled and installed
the new kernel. Still no sound, but now networking works. I have mail,
my firewall is intact, web access is okay, but my sblive is not
detected.

Being superstitious, I used "removepkg" to drop all the alsa packages,
then installpkg to reinstall them again, still nothing.

Grrrrr...

I have three choices I am willing to make, and will be obsessing over
them for a few hours.

1. Do a clean install of SW 10.1, which will be a pain in the OS to say
the least.

2. Wave bye bye to Slackware and give Debian a whirl. I have Shane's
installation disk ready to go here.

3. See if I can get on board with Gentoo, which seems to be getting
noticed lately.

Meanwhile, patching 2.4.29 with the current speakup from CVS gives me a
crippled mark/cut/paste feature. Marking works fine, but cutting locks
up my system tighter than a drum. Not good. I cannot live without
mark/cut/paste any more.

Bummer.

Chuck


-- 
The Moon is Waning Crescent (13% of Full)
"Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Visit my download site at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Kirk Reiser]

Ouch on the lock-up on mark/cut/paste.  Has anybody else patched
2.4.29 and found the same results or better yet that it actually
works?  I have to say that the 2.4.x support days are very limited
because 2.6.x has made a significant divergence and so maintaining
both 2.4 and 2.6 would be a lot more overhead.  Any volunteers to pick
up the 2.4.x maintenance?

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Tom Moore]

A couple of weeks ago I reported this on the reflector and Gene and a few others tried to help me out.
Semed to lock up my machine when I went to paste some text from one console to another.

Tom

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 11:48:14AM -0400, Kirk Reiser wrote:
> Ouch on the lock-up on mark/cut/paste.  Has anybody else patched
> 2.4.29 and found the same results or better yet that it actually
> works?  I have to say that the 2.4.x support days are very limited
> because 2.6.x has made a significant divergence and so maintaining
> both 2.4 and 2.6 would be a lot more overhead.  Any volunteers to pick
> up the 2.4.x maintenance?
> 
>   Kirk
> 
> -- 
> 
> Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
> e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
> phone: (519) 661-3061
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re[2]: Slackware upgrade woes

[Farhan]

what about the debian net inst by Shane its still using 2.4?
on 4/5/2005 kirk@braille.uwo.caKirk Reiser
said
Ouch on the lock-up on mark/cut/paste.  Has anybody else patched
2.4.29 and found the same results or better yet that it actually
works?  I have to say that the 2.4.x support days are very limited
because 2.6.x has made a significant divergence and so maintaining
both 2.4 and 2.6 would be a lot more overhead.  Any volunteers to pick
up the 2.4.x maintenance?

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

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Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.

It uses an official Debian kernel which is still at 2.4.27 and built
with an outdated version of speakup.

          Kenny
	  
On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 12:20:25PM -0500, Farhan wrote:
> what about the debian net inst by Shane its still using 2.4?

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Luke Yelavich]

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Hash: SHA1

On Wed, Apr 06, 2005 at 01:48:14AM EST, Kirk Reiser wrote:
> Ouch on the lock-up on mark/cut/paste.  Has anybody else patched
> 2.4.29 and found the same results or better yet that it actually
> works?

Hi Kirk
I tried patching a 2.6.10 kernel a week or so back with latest CVS, and 
had the same problem with mark/cut. Since I have some sight, I saw a lot 
of kernel symbol garbage, and a kernel panic. I have since reverted back 
to CVS as of the end of last year, which I know works.

> I have to say that the 2.4.x support days are very limited
> because 2.6.x has made a significant divergence and so maintaining
> both 2.4 and 2.6 would be a lot more overhead.  Any volunteers to pick
> up the 2.4.x maintenance?

What has to be done to keep the 2.4 support maintained?
- -- 
Luke

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x1el+wYvPmu9Cs/K+Ov4B3o=
=8eBs
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Kirk Reiser]

Hi Luke,  I find that very strange because I am using linux 2.6.10
through 2.6.11-5 on at least six systems and cut and paste works
fine.  So there must be something else affecting the cut/paste in our
config files.  In fact, we use our own cut and paste these days rather
than the kernels.

Maintaining the 2.4.x tree means making whatever changes are necessary
to keep speakup working with each new kernel release.  Sometimes it is
trivial changes and other times you pull your hair out trying to
figure out why the changes affected speakup like they did.

  Kirk



-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[David Csercsics]

I have no trouble at all with cut and paste in 2.6.11.6 either. Odd.

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

Kirk,

The speakup date is March 30, according to my boot messages. I think
Slackware may be the only major distro still using 2.4 kernels, and my
plan is to go to 2.6 as soon as I can. Even Slackware has been "2.6
ready" since release 10.0, so maybe the problem will go away soon.

-- 
The Moon is Waning Crescent (13% of Full)
"Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Visit my download site at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Sean McMahon]

Debian still uses 2.4 kernels for the speakup kernel deb.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chuck Hallenbeck" <chuckh@hhs48.com>
To: "Speakup Distribution List" <speakup@speech.braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 9:01 AM
Subject: Re: Slackware upgrade woes


> Kirk,
> 
> The speakup date is March 30, according to my boot messages. I think
> Slackware may be the only major distro still using 2.4 kernels, and my
> plan is to go to 2.6 as soon as I can. Even Slackware has been "2.6
> ready" since release 10.0, so maybe the problem will go away soon.
> 
> -- 
> The Moon is Waning Crescent (13% of Full)
> "Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind." Ralph Waldo Emerson
> Visit my download site at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

RE: Slackware upgrade woes

[jim grimsby]

Hi, well the debien modified cd is still using 2.4.27 this is one of my
problems with it.  Speakup is compiled in to this kernel and so if you
updated it to 2.6 witch you can do it does give you that option during
the install you will then have to compile speak up in to that kernel or
compile it as modules.  From what I understand and I am sure you know
better then I compiling it as modules means that you will not have to
worry about lucing speakup every time you update the kernel.  The
disadvantage here is that the modules load later in the boot process.  I
liked debien but was having a lot of problems with the kernel and with
packages getting corrupted.  Because they needed the later kernel to run
how ever if I updated to the later kernel I would have then needed to
get and compile speakup.  So I am leaning more toard them being compiled
as a module and then loaded as a image as described in the HOW to
Install the Speakup Modified Fedora Distribution document.  So if you
decide on debien you may wish to go that rout.  Hth 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca
[mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Chuck Hallenbeck
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 9:02 AM
To: Speakup Distribution List
Subject: Re: Slackware upgrade woes


Kirk,

The speakup date is March 30, according to my boot messages. I think
Slackware may be the only major distro still using 2.4 kernels, and my
plan is to go to 2.6 as soon as I can. Even Slackware has been "2.6
ready" since release 10.0, so maybe the problem will go away soon.

-- 
The Moon is Waning Crescent (13% of Full)
"Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Visit my download site at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 01:16:30PM -0700, jim grimsby wrote:
> From what I understand and I am sure you know
> better then I compiling it as modules means that you will not have to
> worry about lucing speakup every time you update the kernel. 

Wrong, since you need to rebuild the modules every time you move to a
different kernel version. Even if you were right above, losing speakup
still wouldn't be a factor, as long as you remembered to patch the new
kernel with speakup, which you would have to do anyway whenever you
installed a new kernel version with new modules. You can load older
modules into newer kernels, but as far as I understand things, doing
so is asking for trouble (I.E. symbol mismatches), and it is
recommended that you rebuild the modules to match the new kernel,
provided that you can do so (I.E. the source needed to build the
module is not proprietary).

Greg


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Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Dumb question, but did you make sure all your modules are in order and
loaded? 

Greg


On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 10:53:01AM -0400, Chuck Hallenbeck wrote:
> I have been sitting on this SW 10.1 distro for a few weeks, and
> yesterday decided to upgrade my SW 10.0 distribution to the new release.
> I chose to do it like Adam described, following the procedure Patrick
> recommends in the file "upgrade.txt" on disk 1, and everything seemed to
> go okay, except for the kernel. My old kernel (2.4.26) remained in
> place, although the 2.4.29 source tree was put in place. Before
> rebooting I copied the speakup.s kernel to /boot, but not replacing the
> original yet, and made a new entry in /etc/lilo.conf, then ran lilo.
> 
> Well, speakup.s (2.4.29) more or less worked, but my sound drivers were
> not working, and my networking did not work.
> 
> So being a big boy and all, I patched the 2.4.29 source tree from my
> checkout script, fixed a couple of things, then compiled and installed
> the new kernel. Still no sound, but now networking works. I have mail,
> my firewall is intact, web access is okay, but my sblive is not
> detected.
> 
> Being superstitious, I used "removepkg" to drop all the alsa packages,
> then installpkg to reinstall them again, still nothing.
> 
> Grrrrr...
> 
> I have three choices I am willing to make, and will be obsessing over
> them for a few hours.
> 
> 1. Do a clean install of SW 10.1, which will be a pain in the OS to say
> the least.
> 
> 2. Wave bye bye to Slackware and give Debian a whirl. I have Shane's
> installation disk ready to go here.
> 
> 3. See if I can get on board with Gentoo, which seems to be getting
> noticed lately.
> 
> Meanwhile, patching 2.4.29 with the current speakup from CVS gives me a
> crippled mark/cut/paste feature. Marking works fine, but cutting locks
> up my system tighter than a drum. Not good. I cannot live without
> mark/cut/paste any more.
> 
> Bummer.
> 
> Chuck
> 
> 
> -- 
> The Moon is Waning Crescent (13% of Full)
> "Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind." Ralph Waldo Emerson
> Visit my download site at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 
> !DSPAM:4252a687261281555868999!
> 
> 

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Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Adam Myrow]

Try removing the alsa-driver package, grabbing the source code, and 
re-building from source.  It's rather poorly explained, but the Alsa 
modules seem to depend on what else was compiled into the kernel, and 
thus, seem to be specific to the kernel for which they installed.  In 
plain English, I've had to re-compile, not just reinstall the Alsa drivers 
every time I build a new kernel.  2.6.X kernels have Alsa built in, but I 
still prefer to leave it out and compile Alsa separately because the 2.6.X 
Alsa drivers are often older versions than what you can get stand-alone.

Here is how to rebuild ALSA from source.  You could do it manually, but 
this method basically re-builds the Alsa-driver package based on your 
current kernel.  Assuming you have a full Slackware set, insert disk 4 and 
change to the "src/l" directory.  Do a "cp -R" on the "alsa-driver" 
directory to put it on your hard drive.  Now, cd into the newly-created 
directory and give the "alsa-driver.SlackBuild" file execute permissions. 
Then, run that as root.  This will compile Alsa-driver, and stuff the 
output into a package in /tmp.  When it completes, you can do a "tar tzf" 
on the .tgz file to make sure everything is in it.  In particular, make 
sure the modules are in place.  Once the package has been created in /tmp, 
remove any existing alsa-driver package, and install the one in /tmp.  It 
will contain modules based on your current kernel, and will hopefully 
behave itself.  If you switch to kernel 2.6, you will have to modify the 
script.  It hard-codes the kernel version and also assumes that modules 
end in .o.  If you wish to upgrade to a later version of Alsa when it 
comes out, I'd just say to build from source and remove the Slackware 
package.  Just be sure to copy the rc.alsa script from /etc/rc.d before 
you remove the Alsa package, so it can be put back in place.  It takes 
care of loading the modules, and runs alsactl to restore your mixer 
settings.

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

Many thanks for this. I will give it a shot.


On Tue, 5 Apr 2005, Adam Myrow wrote:

> Try removing the alsa-driver package, grabbing the source code, and 
> re-building from source.  It's rather poorly explained, but the Alsa modules 
> seem to depend on what else was compiled into the kernel, and thus, seem to 
> be specific to the kernel for which they installed.  In plain English, I've 
> had to re-compile, not just reinstall the Alsa drivers every time I build a 
> new kernel.  2.6.X kernels have Alsa built in, but I still prefer to leave it 
> out and compile Alsa separately because the 2.6.X Alsa drivers are often 
> older versions than what you can get stand-alone.
>
> Here is how to rebuild ALSA from source.  You could do it manually, but this 
> method basically re-builds the Alsa-driver package based on your current 
> kernel.  Assuming you have a full Slackware set, insert disk 4 and change to 
> the "src/l" directory.  Do a "cp -R" on the "alsa-driver" directory to put it 
> on your hard drive.  Now, cd into the newly-created directory and give the 
> "alsa-driver.SlackBuild" file execute permissions. Then, run that as root. 
> This will compile Alsa-driver, and stuff the output into a package in /tmp. 
> When it completes, you can do a "tar tzf" on the .tgz file to make sure 
> everything is in it.  In particular, make sure the modules are in place. 
> Once the package has been created in /tmp, remove any existing alsa-driver 
> package, and install the one in /tmp.  It will contain modules based on your 
> current kernel, and will hopefully behave itself.  If you switch to kernel 
> 2.6, you will have to modify the script.  It hard-codes the kernel version 
> and also assumes that modules end in .o.  If you wish to upgrade to a later 
> version of Alsa when it comes out, I'd just say to build from source and 
> remove the Slackware package.  Just be sure to copy the rc.alsa script from 
> /etc/rc.d before you remove the Alsa package, so it can be put back in place. 
> It takes care of loading the modules, and runs alsactl to restore your mixer 
> settings.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

-- 
The Moon is Waning Crescent (11% of Full)
"Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Visit my download site at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Kirk Reiser]

I've had no trouble with the built-in alsa in the 2.6.xx kernels.  The
alsa version in 2.6.11 is the most current right now.

In the 2.6 kernels you don't need make modules and make dep it all
gets done with the make bzImage except for the make modules_install.

I'm sure one of us would be happy to send you along a .config as a
seed if you like.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

I would love to have a sample config file. I promise not to use it
unmodified!


-- 
The Moon is Waning Crescent (10% of Full)
"Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Visit my download site at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[nick G]

How do you configure Alsa with something like Alsaconf, if you have the 
builtin alsa?
Thanks,
Nick
P.S.
It's Gentoo Linux on my box.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kirk Reiser" <kirk@braille.uwo.ca>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 6:42 PM
Subject: Re: Slackware upgrade woes


I've had no trouble with the built-in alsa in the 2.6.xx kernels.  The
alsa version in 2.6.11 is the most current right now.

In the 2.6 kernels you don't need make modules and make dep it all
gets done with the make bzImage except for the make modules_install.

I'm sure one of us would be happy to send you along a .config as a
seed if you like.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Slackware upgrade woes

[Ralph W. Reid]

Did you change the reference in /etc/lilo.conf to point to the new
kernel (2.4.29)?  Did you install the speakup.s kernel from the
kernels directory?  Am I way off track because it is too late/early
here for my brain to function properly?

Hopefully something in these questions proves helpful, and have a nice
day :) .

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 10:53:01AM -0400, Chuck Hallenbeck wrote:
> I have been sitting on this SW 10.1 distro for a few weeks, and
> yesterday decided to upgrade my SW 10.0 distribution to the new release.
> I chose to do it like Adam described, following the procedure Patrick
> recommends in the file "upgrade.txt" on disk 1, and everything seemed to
> go okay, except for the kernel. My old kernel (2.4.26) remained in
> place, although the 2.4.29 source tree was put in place. Before
> rebooting I copied the speakup.s kernel to /boot, but not replacing the
> original yet, and made a new entry in /etc/lilo.conf, then ran lilo.
> 
> Well, speakup.s (2.4.29) more or less worked, but my sound drivers were
> not working, and my networking did not work.
> 
> So being a big boy and all, I patched the 2.4.29 source tree from my
> checkout script, fixed a couple of things, then compiled and installed
> the new kernel. Still no sound, but now networking works. I have mail,
> my firewall is intact, web access is okay, but my sblive is not
> detected.
> 
> Being superstitious, I used "removepkg" to drop all the alsa packages,
> then installpkg to reinstall them again, still nothing.
> 
> Grrrrr...
> 
> I have three choices I am willing to make, and will be obsessing over
> them for a few hours.
> 
> 1. Do a clean install of SW 10.1, which will be a pain in the OS to say
> the least.
> 
> 2. Wave bye bye to Slackware and give Debian a whirl. I have Shane's
> installation disk ready to go here.
> 
> 3. See if I can get on board with Gentoo, which seems to be getting
> noticed lately.
> 
> Meanwhile, patching 2.4.29 with the current speakup from CVS gives me a
> crippled mark/cut/paste feature. Marking works fine, but cutting locks
> up my system tighter than a drum. Not good. I cannot live without
> mark/cut/paste any more.
> 
> Bummer.
> 
> Chuck
> 
> 
> -- 
> The Moon is Waning Crescent (13% of Full)
> "Things are in the saddle, and they ride mankind." Ralph Waldo Emerson
> Visit my download site at http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
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