Due to the many Alpha motherboards that have been graced upon users, Red Hat doesnt precompile kernels for all the possible platforms. The usual method instead is to provide the new kernel source and kernel headers packages and allow users to recompile kernels for their systems.
While this is an inconvenience that we apologize for, Red Hat did not have all the hardware and personnel in house to compile and test for all the motherboards in a timely manner.
You will need to download the kernel RPM's for your system. They will have names similar to
As with the Intel platform you will need to update to the latest initscripts and other system RPMS that have been made available for the Alpha. Check the full errata for these RPMS.
After making sure you have the latest system RPM's installed, you will need to find out what hardware you have in the system for choosing the proper options if you need to compile the kernel. The hardware that you should make certain of is which SCSI controller and any special options that the kernel needs for your box. Resources for looking this up can be found at:
To install the kernel RPM, simply type
rpm -ivh kernel-<kernel version>
If you have supported hardware and are able to use our precompiled kernel RPMs, you can skip this part. For people who are generally familiar with compiling Linux kernels, here is a quick rundown of commands for the alpha.
make mrproper
make oldconfig
make config
During the make config, you will make changes that are appropriate to your particular Alpha system.
make dep
make clean
make
make boot
The setup of getting the new kernel set up for Alpha MILO or aboot are best covered in:
but here is a quick explanation of what to do. This example assumes a 6.0 system, with an upgrade to the 2.2.5-22 kernel: o example milo.conf
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-15
label=linux
root=/dev/sdc2
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-22
label=linux
root=/dev/sdc2
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-15
label=backup
root=/dev/sdc2
0:2/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-15 root=/dev/sdc2
So - if adding a new kernel:
0:2/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-15 root=/dev/sdc2
1:2/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-22 root=/dev/sdc2
If the user has kernel images stored in the alpha BIOS prom or SRM console (that is - if they have set the environment variables to boot with a full path to the kernel instead of using /etc/milo.conf or /etc/aboot.conf - then the user needs to update those variables to point at the correct kernel.)
o reboot