Slackware – Kernel Upgrade to 3.8.1

I woke up late last night, 12PM EST, and after reading a post that kernel.org had upgraded their website I took a visit. Well, that led me to saying ‘Hey I should upgrade my kernel! I was running 3.4.X something or rather that comes with Slack 14, it was stable but I felt the need to break something! {grin}

Here’s what I did, note YMMV! I used Pats config for the 3.7.1.x64 kernel as a starting point instead of my existing.

As root:

#cd /usr/src

#wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/linux-3.8.1.tar.bz2

#tar -xvf linux-3.8.1.tar.bz2

#rm linux
Removes the existing symlink

#ln -s linux-3.8.1 linux
Creates a new symlink pointing to your new linux source

#wget http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/slackware-current/source/k/config-x86_64/config-huge-3.7.1.x64

#cp config-huge-3.7.1.x64 linux/.config

#cd linux

#make oldconfig
I ran make oldconfig in the kernel source directory so that the defaults are used from the .config file you just installed.
Because your kernel sources are probably newer than the .config, there will be new options to choose from. You will only have to answer these (press ENTER for the default answers which are mostly fine, or M to build new drivers as modules).

#make bzImage modules

#make modules_install

#cp arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-custom-3.8.1
Copies the new kernel file

#cp System.map /boot/System.map-custom-3.8.1
Copies the System.map

#cp .config /boot/config-custom-3.8.1
Backup copy of my kernel config

#cd /boot

#rm System.map
Deletes the old link

#ln -s System.map-custom-3.8.1 System.map
Creates a new link

Edit /etc/lilo.conf and added a new entry for your new kernel. Leave the old just in case!

#lilo

Reboot and enjoy! Hope this helps!

Resources:
Alien Bob

Note:
Doing this on a Slackware image I have running in VirtualBox caused my screen not to be fullsized and I also lost scrolling with my mouse,as well as the back button ability on my mouse. I upgraded VirtualBox to 4.2.8 r83876 and then recompiled the Guest Additions and all was good!