On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 16:13:58 -0500, Stan Hoeppner wrote: > On 9/25/2011 11:02 AM, Camaleón wrote:
(...) >>> Simply go through all the hardware and deselect anything that's not >>> inside that netbook. Of all the network interface cards you'll only >>> need one (or two depending on whether that netbook has an RJ45 port in >>> addition to the wireless NIC). You'll only need one of the dozens of >>> IDE/SATA drivers. You won't need any of the SCSI/RAID or legacy block >>> drivers, though you will need SCSI disk and SCSI CDROM, as libata >>> needs those, as Stephen and I recently discussed. >> >> That's easy to say but hard to get and so much for a trial/error test. > > It's definitely more difficult for non-hardwarefreaks. I'd say it is so for anyone that never has compiled his/her own kernel. First time is always hard, regardless the task you have in hands. > But honestly, if one isn't a hardwarefreak s/he really has no business > rolling his/her own kernel. The entire concept of an operating system > kernel is to abstract the hardware from user applications. This > concept is over 40 years old. Some 90+% of the Linux kernel code deals > with programming and communicating with the hardware. So you really > need to know a bit about hardware if you're going to roll your own > kernels. As I said earlier, I never had a deep reason to compile my own kernel until now, that my wifi card stopped from working since kernel >2.6.39, that is, since 3.0.0 branch and upwards. The involved "function" that has been added to the wifi driver has been detected and I was given a workaround but I still need to be able to test another things and that involves adding debug trace for the stating drivers, which involves a kernel compilation. >>> Do an lspci and write down all the hardware you have in there. The >>> strip out all the drivers you don't have. If you're unsure, ask. >> >> I'm using Sven's advice (in join with Stephen's one), I find it a very >> good approach. > > Pick your poison. My point is simply that you need to know what > hardware is in the machine so you can include the drivers you need and > leave out those you don't. Yes, I know that, but is not an easy task, even for not-so-newbie people. >> Over the years, I've never had the need to compile a kernel and this is >> my 4 kernel compilation in one month... but now I'm making these tests >> "just for fun" because all these compilations were aimed to debug the >> staging wifi drivers but the latest kernel (3.1-rc7, which I tried >> yesterday) neither worked. > > One of the biggest problems I see people having with both wired and > wireless ethernet controllers is not getting the firmware loaded. (...) Not related to this problem, I guess. I'm in talks with one of the driver devels that kindly is helping me to track this. > The option to build firmware into the kernel is: > > CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=y > Description: http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL.html > > The only downside is that this adds a few kilobytes to your kernel > binary. In my experience this is easier than the "recommended" way to > include firmware, and it's foolproof as long as the firmware is in the > source tree. Most are. Good to know. But that would still leave out the closed source drivers or proprietary blob, right? Greetings, -- Camaleón -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/pan.2011.09.26.11.10...@gmail.com