Quick Kernel Installation in MDK

 If you have had expereince with kernel sources and building this should be easy
 for you to do. Even if not reading the docs and by being careful you should be
able to do this. I'm using kernel 2.6.6 in both Slackware current and MDK 10
(from kernel.org).

For a fast track test upgrade grab the 2.6.6 (haven't tried 2.6.7 so I don't know
what to say about it) kernel from kernel.org.

I'm assuming you are using MDK 10 - If not and you don't have a MDK 2.6
kernel this won't work. I used this trick with standard 2.6.3-7 MDK files
and adapted the config to a 2.6.6 kernel. As you might have noticed unless
you compile several services as modules, MDK init scripts don't work
correctly (actually they might but it confuses applets in mcc).

Expand and place under /usr/src and set your linux link in that directory
as you've probably done before. However rename the /usr/src/linux/.config
file to /usr/src/linux/.config.original

Now copy this file in /boot

/boot/config-2.6.3-7mdk

to /usr/src/linux/.config

Now do

make oldconfig
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install

What will happen is it will use the MDK method of configuring the kernel
and modules. If there are any differences (IOW additional features in
2.6.6 not in 2.6.3-7MDK) make oldconfig will only prompt you for answers on
those items that are different. There are very few, 3-4 at the most. One of
which is Supermount. Unless you do the Supermount patch you won't get it
in the pristine 2.6.6 kernel - What a big loss huh :)

The one thing I would suggest also is changing this line with a text
editor before running make oldconfig...

CONFIG_IPV6=m

to

# CONFIG_IPV6 is not set

IPV6 is nothing but a major PITA and this will eliminate any problems
keeping it from loading.

Now you'll have a basic MDK style configured kernel and can proceed to
further tweak it for your needs. As you might know there will be a newly
created .config file that becomes default selections for the next make
config you do. You can try the default kernel you first built to see if
that will do the job. If not look at the .config file you have just created and
plan on what changes to make when you compile again. Compare to what the
MDK config file has selected for reference and plan to make any changes
that appear need to be made. When you recompile after you do a new make
config with those changes it will go very fast.

One thing the improved with 2.6 kernels is compile times somehow. It will
take less than 10 minutes if you only change a few items.

OTOH they made tracking down info on modules or config options a PITA.
They split up /usr/src/linux/Documentation/Configure.help and spread it
out into a bunch of small files that are hard to track down for reference.
However I see absolutely no advantage to doing this and expect them to
change it back. It adds nothing and makes finding info much more tedious.

This is very fast. Once you have the kernel source in place if you have
about a 2GHz machine you can crank out a new 2.6.6 kernel in about 20
minutes.

All the above assumes a starting with a standard MDK kernel more or less
(not 64 bit for example).