[clug] Debian sarge and kernel 2.4.29 problem

[Russell Weatherburn]

G'day,

I'm having a rather frustrating time at the moment with my workstation. 
  I have upgraded from Debian Woody to Sarge, and all appears to be 
going well.  So, I decide to upgrade to the latest kernel version in the 
2.4.x series from ftp.kernel.org...

Anyway, I'm running a P4 2.6 with Hyperthreading, and have been running 
on 2.4.26 as an SMP enabled kernel for probably 4 months of so without 
any issue, having compiled the kernel using kernel-package.  The system 
contains a GForce 4 video card, so I have to re-compile the binary 
drivers to get it to work well, but this is not an issue.  Until now.

With the new 2.4.29 kernel source, I ran `make oldconfig` with my 2.4.26 
kernel configuration, and thought that all would be good.  I installed 
the .deb and rebooted.  All seemed to be good, excluding of course the 
NVidia driver, until the system froze.  A hard reboot rendered the same 
result.

I've since reverted back to the 2.4.26 kernel to check that there was no 
hardware problem that had suddenly arisen during the reboot, but this 
appears to be fine.  I've subsequently built up a non-SMP version of the 
2.4.29 kernel to test, and this appears to be running fine. The only 
issue is now that I have to remember to install the kernel headers 
before attempting to re-install the NVidia drivers if/when I change 
kernel versions...

Has anyone else come across this sort of problem, or seen any mention of 
it on any other newsgroups etc?  I googled for it when the problem first 
arose about a month ago, but haven't had enough time to really research 
what other information may be around.  Any information on how to get my 
system running with an SMP-enabled kernel (preferably 2.4.29 or later) 
would be appreciated, as would any opinions on whether I would be better 
to bite the bullet and go for a 2.6.x series kernel (I'd need some pros 
and cons for this sort of upgrade, considering I would like to continue 
being able to write CD/DVDs on this system...)

Regards,

Russell Weatherburn