pnelson@nyx.net

[adavis@saipan.com]

I had a problem with this too, in another way.  I had tried to install the
latest kernel, as there is a patch for both a printer and ZIP drive to share
one parallel port.  I needed genksyms from a newer package, since kernel
2.1.29 expects a genksysms with a "-k" switch, which earlier ("modules")
versions don't have.  This came up when I typed depmod, especially since I
typed "y" to the question about module version checking.

Well, to make a long story short, I compiled modutils, and installed them
over modules.  This didn't work: my kernel 2.1.14's modules wouldn't work.
My ZIP drive, printer, PCMCIA modem and so on are module-ified, so I was
stuck.  I had made another mistake.  I had installed the new kernel headers
from 2.1.29.  I have consistently fought against the debian method of
handling headers, but until this problem, that hasn't been a problem.  I
still will continue to install the headers from the kernel I am trying to
install, after I sort out this problem.  

Anyway, the modutils (newer version of modules) wouldn't work with 2.1.14.
It seems that there was a 'temporary' module format in some kernels from
about 2.1.8 to about 2.1.(less than 20?).  But the newer modutils package
would work TO SOME EXTENT with an old 2.0.0 kernel I had kept around.  (Some
modules would not work).  

I managed to FTP a copy of the debian libc5-dev package in bo, on a friend's
Windows 95 machine.  The copy was somehow corrupted, and wouldn't install.
I was able to read the file into emacs, gunzip the internal archive, and
then untar the gunzipped archive, working around (somehow) the corrupt
bytes, and get a copy of "modules.h" from the older kernel headers.  After I
installed this file in /usr/include/linux, I was able to compile the older
modules-2.1.13 package, and have been able to use my 2.1.14 kernel.  

All for want of a new genksyms.  I still am not ready to try another
compile.  There are some loopholes in all this.  I am advised that if I need
modules during the changeover, I may need to go back to 2.0.29.

This is the only serious problem I have ever had in compiling a number of
kernels, and experimenting with modules on many.  


Alan 
-- 
 Alan Eugene Davis      Marianas High School      15o 8.8'N       GMT+10        
 adavis@saipan.com      AAA 196 Box 10,001        145o 42.5'E             
                        Saipan, MP  96950                        
                        Northern Mariana Islands       

                                  
"An inviscid theory of flow renders the screw useless, but the need
for one nonexistent."            ------ Lord Raleigh