# Set Gentoo to old Kernel version

## patoo

This is going to be my first post in this gentoo forums. I switched about a half year ago to gentoo but was able to solve all upcoming question due the good documention, but not this time  :Sad: 

So first of all Hi everyone!  :Smile: 

To my settings:

I rent a V-Server but my host just ofert crapy os like suse or ubuntu 8.04, so i went into the rescuemode deleted anythink and put gentoo-vserver on it.

The server is running great, but iam heading into problems due fact, that the hostsystem is running with kernel 2.6.9 and i allready mask packages which told me they are not running under this old kernel. 

So I tried to emerge the old headers but they are not offert by portage (oldest 2.6.30-r1) and iam not even sure if that would be enought to make sure only compatable packages will be emerged.

Any suggestions?  :Very Happy: 

edit:

server version if needed

Linux version 2.6.9-023stab052.4-smp (root@rhel4-64) (gcc version 3.4.5 20051201 (Red Hat 3.4.5-2)) #1 SMP Tue May 11 19:21:39 MSD 2010 x86_64

Greets and tia 

Patrick

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## eccerr0r

One of the problems that may be run into is that a lot of Gentoo packages require a newer version of udev, which in turn requires a newer version of the kernel.  So pretty much you will need to somehow upgrade the kernel...  I pretty much run into this issue on my physical machines that seem to run better on older kernels but udev remains to be an issue...

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## patoo

Thats one of the packages i mask with

>=sys-fs/udev-146 

current installed version is 141-r1. thats the last one didnt told me the my kernel is to old  :Smile: 

But i dont need the newest version of gentoo. just a stable one. beside that i wouldnt get newer versions with ubuntu 8.04 neither.

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## eccerr0r

There are many packages out there that require udev > 141... 

I think the biggest thing is hal...  Not sure if you can always disable it, but probably the chain looks like

hal-0.5.14-r2 requires >=cryptsetup-1.0.5

cryptsetup 1.1.2 requires >=lvm2-2.02.64

lvm2-2.02-73-r1 requires >=udev-151-r4

This is a bit confusing as hal itself requires only udev-125...

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## patoo

Why should i install hal on my server?

I struggled two days with my main pc to unmerge hal there after i changed to xorg 1.9 which wasnt easy course its really deep rooted in ur system ^^ 

server:

*  sys-apps/hal

      Latest version available: 0.5.14-r3

      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]

as far as i know hal (which is long ago deprecated) is only useful to get all hardware support, but all i need on my server i already got by "-march=barcelona". dont need sound, graphics or other "higher" level hardware support.

there seems to be no broken links, dependencies or something like that.  but to be sure that this stays that way i need to prevent emerge from merging packages witch doesnt work with that old kernel.

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## Jaglover

patoo,

I have a couple of desktops, being always up to date over the years they never had hal installed. It certainly is not needed for a server.

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## patoo

Ok good, I didnt wanted to install hal,  but after eccerr0r mentioned it,  I wasn't sure if i missed something about the use of hal.

But that leaves still the Question, how do i preserve emerge from installing packages witch are incompatible to this old 2.6.9 kernel.

And thanx for you efforts so far, I appreciate that.

Oh and dont hesitate to ask if something wasnt explained clearly by me, I know that my English isnt the best  :Smile: 

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## Jaglover

We had a thread here somewhere about building a system without udev. If you think of it udev is not needed if your hardware doesn't change.

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## augury

I used to build with the kernel headers from the kernel I was using.  No problems.  Just rename 

/usr/portage/sys-kernel/linux-headers/linux-headers-2.6.34.ebuild

/usr/portage/sys-kernel/linux-headers/linux-headers-2.6.9.ebuild

and put your kernel sources in /usr/portage/distfiles/.  It's not so important that they match but you want the "2.6.9" number the same (what ever it is you download). 

You may need to do

ebuild --skip-manifest /usr/portage/sys-kernel/linux-headers/linux-headers-2.6.9.ebuild {compile,install,qmerge}

then.

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