Kernel Differences Woes

[David Timms]

Rod Haper wrote:
> Sam Varshavchik wrote:
>> Rod Haper writes:
>>
>>> Okay, let me try this again by restating my problem in a little 
>>> different way.
>>>
>>> I have a generic AMD Athlon XP, VIA chipset mainboard based system 
Aint no thing as generic; the hardware is always changing, and the 
kernel playing catchup to get new stuff working, possibly (accidently) 
making previous working items no longer work.

>>> that will boot FC4 and run just fine with the FC4 baseline 
>>> 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 stock kernel but when I boot the updated 
>>> 2.6.16-1.2111_FC4 stock kernel it fails to include some of the 
>>> hardware devices like the ethernet interface, USB mouse, etc.  The 
>>> same problem occurs with the FC5 baseline stock kernel.  What is 
>>> different in the two stock kernels that could be causing this problem 
>>> and, more importantly, what can I do to fix the problem?
>>>
>>
>> The only thing you can do is file your hardware particulars in 
>> bugzilla, and hope that someone, sometime, will get around to looking 
>> at it.
...
> Sam,
> 
> Thanks for the reply and suggestion.  I guess I'll go ahead and file 
> bugzilla reports for the two systems but I won't hold my breath.  I've 
> searched bugzilla several times for similar problems without any luck. I 
> suspect the problem is related to changes in udev. In the meantime, I'll 
> just continue running FC4 with the old 1369 kernel.
Bugzilla is the answer; without your involvement, the ball is punctured 
and put it the bin. There is no way to solve an issue that isn't 
specified or even known about.

So when you start the ball rolling - include things like:
- actual messages as machine attempts to boot (even attach digital 
camera screen snaps of on-screen messages, or serial port 
redirection/capture)
- working and non-working versions.
- attach lsmod and lspci on a working kernel
- /var/log/messages if the problem kernel gets that far.
- list the complete list of kernels that do/don't work - the differences 
between go/nogo kernel (even if large) may be indicators.
- what kernel version did it stop working ? 2.6.15 or earlier
- Was the FC4 instance an upgrade from something else ? (or clean install ?)
- can problem kernel boot in runlevel 2 or 1 (ie no unneeded services 
running) ? {pushing my memory: grub|e|down to kernel|e| append 1|b}
- post the bugzilla reference in this thread, for future reference :)

A kernel mailing list search specifying your exact chipset part number, 
or the driver that controls it, may turn up something. Also, perhaps a 
liveCD distro with equivalent kernel version may shed some light on 
whether it's Fedora specific.

DaveT.