I am going to attempt to rebuild my kernel (gulp). Now, if I TOTALLY screw it up (likely), I want to know if it is possible for me to preserve my /home partition, and my X configuration:
1. Will the new kernel build impact on my X configuration? I know that my kernel has the NVdriver module installed (the one that came with X 4.1.0), but I'm concerned as to whether if I rebuild the kernel from source, it will require a new installation of X?
2. I have a separate /home partition, on a separate drive (hdb) to where / resides (hda).
I did this incase hda fails.However, as I understand it, even if I make a user with the same name and password and mount /home to the old /home partition, I will still not be able to access any of the files due to permissions- am I right?
If so, would there be a way to save the user info on floppy/CD whatever so that if I did fsck it all up, I could just start an install from scratch and use those files to get access to the old /home? (an install from scratch being far quicker!) Could I possibly ask any more questions in one e-mail? ;)
TIA Ricardo
On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Ricardo Campos wrote:
Will the new kernel build impact on my X configuration? I know that my kernel has the NVdriver module installed (the one that came with X 4.1.0), but I'm concerned as to whether if I rebuild the kernel from source, it will require a new installation of X?
No just build a new kernel, when you reboot your machine XDM and X will not work, just grab the NVIDIA drivers from http://www.nvidia.com and make sure you have them in /usr/src before you do all this. When you have built the new kernel and have it installed etc. you then build the drivers and they get put in the correct places etc. you will then be able to start X again.
I have a separate /home partition, on a separate drive (hdb) to where / resides (hda).
I did this incase hda fails.However, as I understand it, even if I make a user with the same name and password and mount /home to the old /home partition, I will still not be able to access any of the files due to permissions- am I right?
Nope you are wrong ;) if you look in /etc/passwd for your username you will see it is followed by a number, now this is your UID no. this is what is important. If you screw it up all you have to do when you rebuild the machine is make sure your new user account has the same UID no. or you can use the chown command as root to get access back to the files when you have rebuilt the machine.
HTH Adam
Hi Ricardo
A couple of tips for you....
The Makefile in the source directory has an entry near the top that reads :- EXTRAVERSION =
Sometimes this is blank, other times there is a value here. If it is blank, put something in, if it already has a value, cjange it. For example, change it to "RC1", and when you compile the kernel, a "uname -r" would return "2.4.16-RC1". This has the advantage that the modules will be installed to a new directory rather than over-writing the current lot.
Second tip. Rename your old vmlinuz and System.map, propogate the changes through to your lilo/grub config, and add your new kernel to the list. Should you compile a buggered (TM) kernel, you have the option to reboot with the old one.
Regards, Paul.
On Thursday 14 February 2002 8:49 pm, Ricardo Campos wrote:
I am going to attempt to rebuild my kernel (gulp). Now, if I TOTALLY screw it up (likely), I want to know if it is possible for me to preserve my /home partition, and my X configuration:
-
Adam Bower -
Paul -
Ricardo Campos