kernel upgrade for live usb

[mimosa]

I`m at my mother`s house in Scotland running Salix 13.37 from a memory stick; however, the hardware is recent and the module for the radeon video card is not present. I thought the simplest solution might be to upgrade to the current kernel, as I did a while back just for fun. Meanwhile I have X using vesa. It`s a bit of a strain on the eyes.

Does upgrading the kernel work the same way for Live? The only kernel package that seems to be installed is kernel-headers, for instance, yet the other kernel packages must surely be there, otherwise nothing would work at all ... Secondly, what about updating grub to reflect the new kernel? I don`t want to risk wiping the MBR on the hard disk and damaging the machine`s existing setup. I installed sg2conf and it failed, here is the log:

Code: Select all

root[one]# cat /var/log/sg2conf.log
sg2conf 1.1.14.1

fdisk -l output:
----begin----

Disk /dev/sdb: 4007 MB, 4007657472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 487 cylinders, total 7827456 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c00fa

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63     7823654     3911796    b  W95 FAT32

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x68a46c8e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1              63       80324       40131   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sdc2   *       81920    31141887    15529984    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdc3        31141888   976771071   472814592    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
----end----

/etc/fstab:
----begin----
----end----

mount output:
----begin----
none on / type aufs (rw,relatime,si=99a6df05,noplink,nowarn_perm)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/one/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=one)
----end----


grub-probe: error: cannot stat `none'.
Couldn't determine the root device!

[Shador]

Does upgrading the kernel work the same way for Live?

No, it's a whole lot more complicated! But it's possible. There's a special kernel with special config for live, all related files are in our svn repo.

Secondly, what about updating grub to reflect the new kernel? I don`t want to risk wiping the MBR on the hard disk and damaging the machine`s existing setup. I installed sg2conf and it failed, here is the log:

sg2conf is definitely not going to work!!! That tool is written for regular hard disk installs even more then other autmatic configuration tool. No such tool works with a Live media because the configuration is written manually, highly specific to Salix Live!!!
But if I recall correctly the kernel loaded by the boot menu is not stored with a version string. So just swapping that file without changing anything else should make it load a different kernel. In any case it would be just boot.cfg that needs editing.

Honestly, for anybody not familiar with SaLT or at least live system internals generally this is probably way out of scope. Much more needs to be done than with a regular hd install. Updating packages stored in the iso directly, installing them in the salt modules, changing the kernel that is loaded by the menu and finally rebuilding the initrd. You need to build and package a kernel (which is not that difficult) and you probably need to tweak some options (which requires loads of background knowledge). Actually you could as well build the live image from scratch. In the end it's more difficult than building another Live edition for the same Salix version.

[mimosa]

Thanks Shador. It sounds as though the simplest course is to try attacking the problem from the other side, that is, just the video module. My research turned up some stuff about a non-proprietary radeon driver, or something. I`ll try that and if I have trouble I`ll create a new topic for it.

[mimosa]

As a footnote to the above - I hit upon Slackel, djemos`s version of Salix with the Slackware-current kernel and KDE. The video is clear as a bell, and on a machine with this level of hardware, KDE is a pleasure to use. Thanks djemos!