Dear all Thanks for all comments.
I have indeed been running bf24 all this time. I hadn't been updating LILO during kernel installation. The reason for this omission is that the dpkg -i dialogs didn't seem to be giving me an option to avoid installing lilo into the MBR (I have another OS hogging the MBR). I ran through it all again and found I could install the boot block on the linux partition (/dev/hda3). So now uname and I are in agreement, and there is a new set of error messages: * During dpkg -i kernel-image-2.4.18_forAlsa.1.0_i386.deb I got this new depmod error: depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.18/alsa/snd-intel8x0.o There was a problem running depmod. This may be benign, (You may have versioned symbol names, for instance). Or this could be an error. In any case, since depmod is run at install time, we could just defer running depmod Would you like to abort now? [Yes] no * During the following reboot a lot of 'couldn't locate module X' messages scrolled past, and after logging on lsmod brought me: debian:~# lsmod Module Size Used by Not tainted debian:~# I should have (at least?) one module, as I configured sound support to be modular. I decided to mess about with modprobe (the four modules I probe are taken from the alsa-project doc page for my sound card): debian:~# modprobe snd-intel8x0 /lib/modules/2.4.18/alsa/snd-intel8x0.o: unresolved symbol snd_mpu401_uart_new_R606a10b8 /lib/modules/2.4.18/alsa/snd-intel8x0.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.18/alsa/snd-intel8x0.o failed /lib/modules/2.4.18/alsa/snd-intel8x0.o: insmod snd-intel8x0 failed debian:~# modprobe snd-pcm-oss debian:~# modprobe snd-mixer-oss debian:~# modprobe snd-seq-oss debian:~# lsmod Module Size Used by Not tainted snd-seq-oss 23424 0 (unused) snd-seq-midi-event 2792 0 [snd-seq-oss] snd-seq 33100 2 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event] snd-seq-device 3888 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq] snd-pcm-oss 34656 0 (unused) snd-pcm 47008 0 [snd-pcm-oss] snd-timer 9152 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm] snd-mixer-oss 8576 0 [snd-pcm-oss] snd 23688 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-seq-device snd-pcm-oss snd-pcm snd-timer snd-mixer-oss] soundcore 3492 2 [snd] debian:~# * Intel 810 + AC97 Audio no longer in boot messages. Interestingly, with the new kernel, these old sound card messages no longer appear when booting up: Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: Intel 810 + AC97 Audio, version 0.21, 10:28:09 Apr 14 2002 Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:1f.5 Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:1f.3 Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:1f.6 Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 02:00.1 Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.5 to 64 Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: i810: Intel ICH3 found at IO 0x18c0 and 0x1c00, IRQ 11 Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: i810_audio: Audio Controller supports 6 channels. Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x4144:0x5348 (Analog Devices AD1881A) Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0 Unable to map surround DAC's (or DAC's not present), total channels = 2 Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: ac97_codec: AC97 Modem codec, id: 0x5349:0x4c27 (Unknown) Aug 10 20:00:52 debian kernel: i810_audio: timed out waiting for codec 1 analog ready. Aug 10 20:00:54 debian lpd[392]: restarted * To get some more info I tried a few alsa commands: debian:~# alsactl store /usr/sbin/alsactl-0.9: save_state:963: No soundcards found... debian:~# amixer amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such file or directory debian:~# So I feel I've moved forward: I'm now correctly installing the new kernel and the alsa error messags have narrowed in scope. The remaining/new issues are: * Not all of the messages that scroll past on bootup are saved in /var/log/messages - specifically the 'can't locate module' messages. Are these other messags saved somewhere else? Is it something like stoud > /var/log/messages and stderr > /some/where/else? Why am I getting a pile of new 'can't locate module' errors? * Where has this unresolved symbols problem with snd-intel8x0.o come from and why? I've never had that error message before. This might be a good one to solve. * Presumably those intel810 boot messages no longer come up because I've deselected the i810_audio module in favour of alsa. Also presumably alsactl's problems finding a card are nothing to do with this, but to do with the depmod problems with alsa's own snd-intel8x0. Is that the case? What would happen if I had the built-in module(s) (e.g. intel ICH - any others?) *as well* as alsa? What about removing alsa altogether and going with the kernel's built-in modules? (but, that not working was why I went for alsa in the first place ...). As before, all comments welcome. When this is all over, I'll post a commemorative web-page somewhere. Best wishes Ivan
