Safe to patch Mandrake kernels?

[Guest zgwortz]

Hi!

 

I'm trying to get my ICH5R controlled SATA drives to work with DMA under Mandrake, and have, after exhaustive searching, come to the conclusion that the only way to do it with 9.1 is to patch my kernel (currently built from the 2.4.21-0.25mdk sources) with the 2.4.21-ac4 patch.

 

What I'm not clear on is whether the Mandrake modifications to the kernel source will interfere with this. Does anyone know?

 

The only alternatives I can see are to 1) Download the vanilla sources and patch that; 2) Download the current 9.2 release candidate and hope they've added in the contents of that patch; 3) Switch to something else which already has the SATA support in their version of the kernel.

 

Personally, I've already invested much time and effort in Mandrake to switch now, and I don't know if the rest of the Mandrake distro will work if I use the vanilla kernel sources (if so, maybe updating to 2.4.22 would be a good idea...), so I'm hoping I can get away with this patch.

 

Thanks,

-->Zgwortz

[Guest zgwortz]

I guess not... :( I decided to try an experiment - made a duplicate of my kernel source tree, and tried applying the patch to it. Lots and lots of failures.

 

Anyone know if the current 9.2 release contains the SATA fixes? Or what would happen if I tried a vanilla 2.4.22 kernel?

 

-->Zgwortz

[ramfree17]

Or what would happen if I tried a vanilla 2.4.22 kernel?

 

you will have to patch the vanilla kernel yourself with the additional functionalities that you want (like the SATA fixes). you might lose some functionality that is in the standard mdk kernels but you can search for the correct patch and use those. on the plus side, you can have a leaner and meaner kernel because it wont have the other things that you need.

 

take this with a huge grain of salt. i still havent compiled my own kernel yet. :blush:

 

ciao!

[bvc]

on the plus side, you can have a leaner and meaner kernel because it wont have the other things that you need.

you mean....other things that you don't need :wink: :?:

take this with a huge grain of salt. i still havent compiled my own kernel yet.

:roll: ....nOOb :P j/k

 

He's right though....sorta. The vanilla has quite alot in it now days, so most don't lose anything, unless you have something really new, exsotic, experimental. To start with, get the ac-patch

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan

along with your SATA patch. The ac will give you a lot that's in a mdk kernel among other things. You might also checkout either or both the preempt and low-latency patches.

 

B4 you patched the mdk kernel, did you;

make mrproper

? The mdk kernels are patched out, and it is very hard to patch it with anything because just about everything has been 'touched' by other patches already...hence, your errors.

[phunni]

Have a go with a patchd vanilla - if you keep your existing kernel (ALWAYS a good idea) then the worst that can happen is a learning experience with compiling the kernel. You may well end up with a faster kernel that supports all the features you need it to.

 

Probably a good way to figure out which patches you may need is also to try running a custom kernel and see what actually doesn't work - rather than trying to guess beforehand

[ramfree17]

on the plus side, you can have a leaner and meaner kernel because it wont have the other things that you need.

you mean....other things that you don't need :wink: :?:

take this with a huge grain of salt. i still havent compiled my own kernel yet.

:roll: ....nOOb :P j/k

 

arrgggh.. good thing i gave a warning in the end. :#:

 

go with what bvc said. he is one of the old hands in this board (in terms of tinkering experience). :#:

 

ciao!