Recently, I installed a new kernel for my Debian-Testing box.

I have been using a 2.4.26 kernel that I got from backports, way back before I upgraded to testing. This kernel works well enough that I still use it, and keep it as the default bootup, as there are a couple of non-linux Lusers that also use this box, and I'd like to give them a stable and well tested platform to do their work.

But I have a couple of periphrials that have verry good support in the 2.6 kernel (ATI Remote Wonder - RF remote, to name one), and thought perhaps a 2.6 kernel'd be great...

So, I got the Debian 2.6.8 kernel image and source packages and some other stuff, installed them, and re-booted. This went well enough, except there was no mouse!

A little troubleshooting I found that the psmouse kernel module was not loaded. Editing /etc/modules fixed this.

Then I got to looking at making my ATI Remote Wonder work, and found a kernel module "ati_remote" that the good folks at Debian had built into the kernel image. This also went into /etc/modules, and presto! my remote worked also!

A couple of other things I've noticed about 2.6.8:

1. Games appear to play much faster. I'm not sure why or how this is, and will need to do some investigation into the speciffics of it.
2. My internet connection (dialup ppp) sucks with 2.6 - let me explain: with all previous kernels and all previous installs peroid, pppd always re-dialed when the connection was dropped. But with 2.6,if my ppp connection is dropped, pppd does NOT re-dial, but instead I have to manually re-connect. This is not a big problem for me, but it prevents me from making 2.6 my default kernel - those other Lusers I mentioned above would not know that they needed to issue a 'pon' command in a terminal.

All in all, I like the 2.6 kernel, but I have a couple of issues still to iron out before moving perminantly to this kernel...

jacks4u

"Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb
voting on what to have for lunch,
Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote" - Ben Franklin