THIS IS EASY. Help w/ terminology and driver/module
 

OK, I am a newbie. Here's the deal. I have a RedHat 4 EL system with a Symbios SCSI card not being recognized.

1.) I type uname -r and get: 2.6.9-34.EL
2.) in the /usr/src/kernels/2.6.9-34.EL-i686/.config file : #CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C416 is not set. This is a autogenerated file.
3.) There is a sym53c416.h file in /usr/src/kernels/2.6.9-34.EL-i686/include/config/scsi directory when I cat it out it reads: #undef CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C416

Now the questions:

A.) How do I get the card to be recognized? The sym53c416.h file doesn't seem to be a driver file to me. Do I need to compile a module, a kernel, what?

recompile the kernel from the source with the appropriate support for your hardware.

regards,
...drkstr

Can be either compiled into the kernel or as a module, as (in this case) you don't appear to need it to boot. My preference is always to include support for my specific hardware, just in case.
Don't know if you even get the source with RHEL - best to try looking in the Redhat forum for some info/howtos. There will be a fair sized patchset for EL I would think, so just pulling a kernel from kernel.org is unlikely to fit the bill.

OK, thank you. How do you tell it which ones to include?

OK, you are correct the card is for a HP ScanJet 4 scanner, so I don't need it for hard drive boot. How do I build a module? Thank you. I will continue to look in that forum. I scanned it earlier and went through Newbie, and Tutorials-hardware as well.

I belive this device should be auto detected if you have scsi and usb support in the >= 2.4.12 kernel, along with the correct device driver set. You will need this patch for the later Once the source is patched, just go through the kernel config options until you see see the device you need to activate and compile it as a module.

When you get your kernel configured, do 'cat /proc/scsi/scsi' to see if it was detected If not, please post the output.

regards,
...drkstr

OK, I am a hopeless Windows case. My vers. is 2.6.9-34.EL so I meet your first criteria. Where do I look for the correct device driver set or activate it? What tool do I use to compile a module? I saw something about make module. The guides for RHEL 4 don't even have anything for compile in them, I looked. I have a RHN subsription too.

-Doug

Take that line, edit it to say this:
and then in that directory, type 'make' then 'make modules_install' and you should be done. modprobe <module name> and scan away.

Sorry,been out walking the mutts.
"=m" maybe if you merely want it as a module ???.

I thought that you weren't supposed to modify the .config file, that it was generated automatically. I am confused, I really like Linux, I find it challenging and new ( i know not really new.). Windows was getting old.

Thank you for hanging in there with me. Well I did try to get to run make and then make install_modules, but got errors. Rebooted, mouse failed, so I went and used my 2.6.9-5.EL load. Back to square one.


I know this just comes down to placing driver files in the right location, having the drivers load, and making a module, then calling that module. I just need it in baby steps.

Sorry.

Heh, uhhh yeah... that'd be the one I was thinking about :p

If you're having difficulty with the new kernel, try checking the output of dmesg and look for anything that strikes you as wrong. You don't need to be a guru for the word error or failed to mean bad things :)

OK make menuconfig is a kewl tool. I'll tinker some more. Have a great evening!!! Thanks all!!!!!

I have always compiled with 'make && make modules && make modules_install && make install', or if I am just adding new modules; 'make modules && make modules_install'. Does 'make modules' get included in the first make command? There is no reason to be redundant, should I just leave that part out from now on?

regards,
...drkstr

For 2.6 kernels, for a full install all that is required is "make && make modules_install".

Thanks for the info, I guess I'm behind the times :)

regards,
...drkstr