On Jul 26, 2006, at 9:23 AM, Jason DeVita wrote:
Ebrahim,
Sorry to be so slow on the response. I haven't had much free time
lately. You are indeed correct that you won't need to download a
driver separately. It should be included with the kernel source.
However, according to the berlios.de site pointed to above, there
is a separate tool that is required to run the airport card, after
the kernel has been installed. I don't know anything about this,
but that's what site says. So you may want to read about that. One
more thing to note, according to the site, is that the main kernel
doesn't fully support WPA (only WEP). Though it sounds like there
is another kernel branch that fully supports WPA, if necessary.
You mentioned ppckernel.org. I looked at the config files for some
of the pre-built kernels there, and I couldn't find any that
include the BCM43xx drivers. So it seems you will have to build
your own. You can get the kernel source from http://
www.kernel.org. (in the old days, ppc specific features were
difficult to get into the main kernel tree, so separate ppc kernel
trees were maintained. Nowadays however, most of the ppc
development is put directly into the main tree. Thus, you can just
download the main kernel without having to worry about ppc patches
or whatever)
As for building the kernel, it's been a while since I've done it,
especially on YDL (I mostly run Debian-x86 now...). So you might
want to google-check what I say. Or maybe someone else reading
this can fact-check.
The terrasoft link you provided is for 2.2 and 2.4 kernels, and is
outdated. There are small but important differences between
compiling the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. For the most part, the
instructions will be the same for YDL versus other distros. So you
can just google for a good kernel building how-to. This:
http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/Kernel-Build-HOWTO.html
is sort of the standard how-to. It is very comprehensive. So if
you want to really understand what you're doing, it could be a good
place to start.
I'll attempt here an executive summary:
=====================================
[1] Download the kernel source from www.kernel.org. Get the latest
stable version (currently 2.6.17.7). Make sure to get the full
source and not just the patch.
(from here on out, I'll assume we're running as root. It is not
necessary to do so until later, but this will simplify things.)
[2] Unpack the kernel
# mv /PATH_TO_WHERE_YOU_DOWNLOADED_IT/linux_2.6.17.7.tar.bz2 /
usr/src/
# cd /usr/src
# bunzip2 linux_2.6.17.7.tar.bz2
# tar xf linux_2.6.17.7.tar
# cd linux_2.6.17.7
[3] Configure the kernel. Since you are only changing one thing,
it's best to start with the default YDL kernel config.
# cp /boot/config-2.6.xx-blah-blah .config
# make mrproper
# make menuconfig
A menu-based configurator will come up -- this is where you need to
tell the kernel to compile support for the bcm driver. For this
step, follow the instructions from the gentoo forum page listed above.
[4] Build and install the kernel and modules
# make vmlinux
(go get a snack)
# make modules
(go have some coffee)
Assuming no errors above
# make modules_install
# cp arch/ppc/boot/vmlinux /boot/vmlinux-2.6.17.7
# cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.17.7
# ln -s /boot/System.map-2.6.17.7 /boot/System.map
[5] Configure yaboot. Open up /etc/yaboot.conf in a text editor,
and copy the section that starts with
image=/vmlinux-2.6.xx-blah
including all the indented lines below it. In the (now) second
instance, change "image=/boot/vmvlinux-2.6-xx-blah" to "image=/boot/
vmlinux-2.6.17.7" and change "label=linux" to
"label=myhairisonfire" (or whatever name you desire). Then run
# /sbin/ybin
to set the changes.
[6] Reboot and pray. Upon rebooting, you'll get the normal choice
of cdrom, osx, or linux. After you choose linux, yaboot will give
you a prompt (only for a couple seconds -- so be ready, or else it
will boot the old kernel). Type "myhairisonfire" (or whatever name
you chose) at the prompt and you will boot the new kernel. If
things go bad, you can return to the old kernel by rebooting.
=====================================
Well, hopefully I haven't made any mistakes. Report back with any
question or problems! The nice thing about building a kernel for
the first time is that it is a win-win situation. Either
everything will work just fine, or you'll get to learn a lot about
how linux works!
-J
Hello Jason
Thank you so much for the detailed response. I will run this by as
soon as I have some time.
Much appreciated. :-)
Ebrahim
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