RH8 --> FC2 Upgrade done

Rick Stevens rstevens at vitalstream.com
Thu Jul 15 18:03:05 UTC 2004


Graeme Nichols wrote:
> Hello Folks, thanks to those who gave me some pointers on the above
> upgrade. I have now upgraded to FC2 from RH8 and the results are not all
> that good. There are some serious problems which I am hoping someone can
> help me with.
> 
> Apart from bombing out early because a swap partition for a 7.1 install
> of RH on hda was found by the installer and deemed to not be initialized
> (fixed by running mkswap against the offending partition) everything
> appeared to go OK, although it took several hours, due possibly to my
> having a 'everything' install of RH8.
> 
> When booting after installing it booted the old kernel using the old
> lilo.conf, the upgrade hadn't run either lilo or grub against the new
> lilo.conf or grub.conf. Easy fixed, now boots fine except it barfs when
> trying to initialize eth0.
> 
> The errors from dmesg follow:-
> 
> 8139too: Unknown parameter 'irq'
> iptables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter Core Team
> 8139too: Unknown parameter 'irq'
> 8139too: Unknown parameter 'irq'
> NET: Registered protocol family 10
> Disabled privacy extensions on device 0220b720 (lo)
> IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
> Divert: Not allocating divert_blk for non ethernet device sit0
> Warning: Process 'update' used the obsolete bdflush system call
> Fix your init scripts?
> 
> Every time I try and start eth0 the line '8139too: Unknown parameter
> 'irq' is written to dmesg.
> 
> Now, the funny thing is if I run the hardware browser my ethernet card
> is shown as eth1 (A RealTek), changing everything via network config
> applet to eth1 simply gives the same errors in dmesg.

Edit the /etc/modprobe.conf file and remove the "irq" bit in the alias
for the 8139too module.  The 8138too module under kernel 2.6 doesn't
support the irq parameter.

> Trying to activate the ethernet card using the network config applet
> gives some funny errors as well. When I make any changes and try and
> save them I get the following error:-
> ERR2 No such file or directory
> '//etc/sysconfig/network-scripts//ifcfg-lo.rpmsave'. Trying to activate
> it from the same utility results in 'Interface eth0 not found 8139too
> device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization' If I
> change the config to eth1 I get the same error except it is eth1 it is
> complaining about. If i click on the deactivate button I get the
> following error:- RPMSAVE: No such file or directory. Dev eth1 has
> different MAC address than expected. Ignoring. 
> 
> When trying to activate eth0(1) a window sometimes pops up with the
> following error:- Command failed. /sbin/modprobe 8139too irq 5, OUTPUT:
> FATAL: Error inserting 8139too
> (/lib/modules/2.6.5-1.358/kernel/drivers/net/8139too.ko). Unknown symbol
> in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

Again, take the irq parameter out of /etc/modprobe.conf.  Then try to
reconfigure your card.

> There are no files in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ directory, a
> good reason why things are cocked up amongst others. 
> 
> When it comes to the printer, an Epson Stylus Colour 460, using the
> printer config, all the settings are as they should be but again I get
> an error saying that it cannot write the config to the file. The printer
> doesn't work, naturally.

Remember, FC2 doesn't come with LPrng.  It comes with CUPS.  Make sure
you configure it properly with "system-config-printer" or with the GUI
equivalent.  You must be root to do that.

> Kooka finds the scanner OK. I can mount my usb connected external HD but
> not my usb Zip drive.

Are you certain?  Have you done a "cat /proc/scsi/scsi" to see if it was
seen?

> Now to my display and mouse, keyboard etc. I cannot find a Xorg.conf
> file anywhere. And there is no example file where the man pages say it
> should be. Can someone send me an example file please.

The config file should be in /etc/X11 and is called "xorg.conf" (lower
case), NOT "Xorg.conf" (with a capital "X").  "system-config-display"
should generate one for you.  If you really want one (from a lab rat
machine):
------------------------------ CUT HERE -------------------------------
# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"
         Identifier     "single head configuration"
         Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
         InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
         InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database.  Note, this is the name 
of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db").  There is normally
# no need to change the default.
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
         RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
         FontPath     "unix/:7100"
EndSection

Section "Module"
         Load  "dbe"
         Load  "extmod"
         Load  "fbdevhw"
         Load  "glx"
         Load  "record"
         Load  "freetype"
         Load  "type1"
         Load  "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
#       Option  "Xleds"         "1 2 3"
# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
#       Option  "XkbDisable"
# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults).  For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
#       Option  "XkbModel"      "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
#       Option  "XkbModel"      "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
#       Option  "XkbLayout"     "de"
# or:
#       Option  "XkbLayout"     "de"
#       Option  "XkbVariant"    "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
#       Option  "XkbOptions"    "ctrl:swapcaps"
# Or if you just want both to be control, use:
#       Option  "XkbOptions"    "ctrl:nocaps"
#
         Identifier  "Keyboard0"
         Driver      "keyboard"
         Option      "XkbModel" "pc105"
         Option      "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
         Identifier  "Mouse0"
         Driver      "mouse"
         Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
         Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
         Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
         Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
         Identifier   "Monitor0"
         VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
         ModelName    "KDS Visual Sensations VS-7"
         HorizSync    30.0 - 70.0
         VertRefresh  50.0 - 120.0
         Option      "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
         Identifier  "Videocard0"
         Driver      "trident"
         VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
         BoardName   "Trident 3DImage975 (generic)"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
         Identifier "Screen0"
         Device     "Videocard0"
         Monitor    "Monitor0"
         DefaultDepth     24
         SubSection "Display"
                 Viewport   0 0
                 Depth     24
                 Modes    "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
         EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
         Group        0
         Mode         0666
EndSection
------------------------------ CUT HERE -------------------------------

> Another problem that has arisen is with Pine. It won't start complaining
> of not being able to load shared files. Any clues on this one?

Sure.  FC2 uses gcc 3.3, not gcc 3.2.2.  The library format is a bit
different.  Upgrade Pine.

> All the above problems are connected to an 'upgrade' I guess, but there
> seems to me to be some underlying serious problem that I can't put my
> finger on. Not being able to save any of the config files is a worry I
> would like to get to the bottom of.
> 
> I can boot the system OK. I can use an editor, open Evolution etc. but I
> am not yet sure that FC2 has anything to offer that RH8 hadn't, except
> that it isn't obsolete. A lot of the productivity short-cuts that were
> available in RH8 & Gnome appear to have been removed. Still, let's get
> the above problems fixed and working properly first before passing
> judgment.
> 
> If anyone can help I will be very grateful.

FC2 is a quantum leap beyond RH8.0 (which was buggy as hell and IMHO
should NEVER have been released--witness the number of patches for it).

You've changed from a 2.4 kernel to a 2.6 kernel (which is a HUGE jump),
a new gcc 3.3 compiler, a switch from XFree86 to Xorg and a raft of
other changes.  There are going to be both teething problems and
learning issues for you.

FC2 is really not ready for non-geeks, IMHO.  Many 3rd party drivers
for various hardware bits aren't available for 2.6 kernels and the
change to Xorg's X implementation isn't the smoothest (works well,
though).  The logical jump for non-geeks was to FC1 (still a 2.4
kernel), to get used to how the FC stuff is different from RHL.  Once
you're comfortable with that and are willing to make the jump to a 2.6
kernel, THEN you update to FC2 and expect to learn yet more with the
major changes internal to it.

You don't even want to know about FC3 (coming soon!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-         We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?       -
----------------------------------------------------------------------





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