[Scottish] Debian: need help installing new kernel package

[David Irvine]

> > Make sure that you have /initrd.img or more likely that it points
> > somewhere useful like /boot/initrd-2.4.20-k7.img
> 
> err, but _how_, though? %-(
> 
> Obviously even by taking the not-real-man's way out of going through
> apt-get rather than compiling my own kernel, it's still assuming a level
> of knowledge that I don't have!
> 
> Can you tell me how and where do I conjure up this initrd.img from?

ok on my system, i have a load of initrd.img-* in /boot/ which were
installed when in installed various kernels. Have a look and find one
for 2.4.20, most likely called initrd.img-2.4.20-k7

if its there then its as simple as 

# cd /
/# ls -l initrd*
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           26 Feb 20 09:51 initrd.img ->
boot/initrd.img-2.4.19-686
#
shows me that i have initrd.img linked to boot/initrd.img-2.4.19-686

what you want is it linked to the 2.4.20 one which is probably what it
is set to, if not do something like the following

# rm /initrd.img
# ln -s boot/initrd.img-2.4.20-k7 initrd.img
# lilo
Added Linux *
Added LinuxOLD
# 

if the initrd file doesnt exist at all then you need to 

# apt-get install initrd-tools

and probably

# apt-get install cramfsprogs 

then

# mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.4.20-k7

then you need to make sure that you ln -s /boot/initrd.img-2.4.20-k7
/initrd.img
then run lilo

if lilo fails for some reason DO NOT reboot your machine.

HTH

David