Patch kernel with cifs

[the-one1]

I have Red Hat 9 with 2.4.20 kernel. I downloaded the cifs patch and extracted it into the /root. I also download the 2.4.20 kernel from kernel.org.
I extracted the kernel into /usr/src.
I run the patch -p1 < /root/linux/cifs_24.patch.
I then copy the /fs/cifs/* to the /usr/src/new kernel/fs/cifs.
I do "make menuconfig" and choose cifs support in the kernel. I exit and save.
Then "make dep".
Then I want it as a module so I do a "make modules".
The lastly a "make modules_install"
I download the mount.cifs into the /sbin.
I reboot. I do a mount -t cifs //123.123.123/share /root/share -o user=user,password=user.
It comes back saying "cifs is not a supported file system"

A couple of questions:
On a fresh install I have a folder 2.4.20-8 in my /usr/src folder.
Do I run the patch on that or the newly downloaded kernel from kernel.org?
How do I enable the module?
I know that the 2.6 kernel has the cifs support, if I upgrade the kernel to 2.6, will my settings and programs still work?
I have been going at this for 3 weeks trying to patch the 2.4 kernel with the cifs file system.

 

[Josh_B]

As long as you install the newest module-init-tools, then you can continue to use 2.6 as if it were a 2.4 kernel. They are binary-compatible and AFAIK, I haven't heard of many apps that break. (None that are installed by default AFAIK.)

Go ahead and compile the newest kernel for 2.6 - you won't regret it.

Also, to answer your question, you need the source for your current kernel to get CIFS working with your v.2.4 kernel. You can determine which kernel you're using by doing 'uname -a'.

Once you figure out you're running 2.4.x, then you can install the kernel-source and create the link to /usr/src/linux.... I'm pretty sure you know the rest.