No startup messages ... after upgrading to 2.6 [SOLVED]

[sabaisabai]

Hi, I'm hoping to get some advice on an issue I'm facing. I've searched though the forums but haven't found a similar problem.

I have tried to upgrade several times from a 2.4.25 kernel to a 2.6.x kernel, but experience the same problem each time; On startup all I see is a blank screen, i.e. with no startup messages, until after a couple of minutes (longer than booting on 2.4.25) the screen comes to life with the KDE login. I can enter KDE after that, but am unable to launch any consoles - on Konsole the prompt never appears.

My system is a Dell 5100 laptop with ATI Radeon 7500 graphics card. I am quite confident that the kernel config is correct for the card.

Has anybody experienced this same problem, or can offer any advice where to go from here? Could there be a problem with the previous modules from 2.4.25 clashing with built-in modules? Is there a way to clean out a a setup like that? Unfortunately with the console out of order I can't look at any messages or config files after booting from this kernel.

SOLVED -- I had been using a kernel ".config" file for my laptop which I had mistakently assumed was for a Gentoo install (!). I needed to enable DEVFS (for the console) and frame buffer support (for the screen)