Hi all

Please excuse my ignorance, but on my new Suse 10.0 installation I'm trying to get ndiswrapper to work with my wireless card. I'm working through the great howto guide at sourceforge (and I have done this once before with Mandrake a while a go), but after checking that there is a link to the kernel source from the modules directory (there is) the instructions say to:


Make sure you have started compiling the kernel sources, so needed header files are present (i.e. you should have already compiled and built the kernel before)


I know that this is basic stuff, but I really am quite a novice still. Can someone please explain what I have to do to ensure that my 'needed header files are present'. All I've done so far is install SUSE 10.0!

Thanks. I did search and try to find out but I got lost in the mass of kernel based questions.

1. Install the kernel source and the development stuff (gcc, ld, ... all included in the development package).
2. Compile the kernel; you can find instructions in /usr/src/linux a file named "readme"

Thanks for the quick reply... but:

I've never used YaST before for installing things. If I go to software management and type in gcc then three packages are avialiable to me of which two are already installed - The GCC Preprocessor, and the C compiler runtime library. Is this what i need?


In usr/source/ I have three folders Kernel-modules, linux-26.13-15-obj, and packages. Non of these seem to be the readme that you told me to read. None of these folders contains a readme either!

Sorry for being so unknowledgeable, but despite trying Linux in the past with Red Hat 9, Fedora Core 3, and Mandrake, it is still a bit of a mystery to me. I'm trying though, but having used Mandrake a fair amount, Suse and its YaST programme are new to me.

Thank you for taking the time to help.

It doesn't sound like you have the kernel sources installed. Go into YaST Software managment and search for 'kernel-source' and install this package.

Concerning the instructions you mentioned, try the following:
After the sources are installed, type the following series of commands:

This should be sufficient. I would be surprised if you need to actually compile the kernel.

Thank you for that abisko00 - you were right - my kernel wasn't installed.



I have to leave now so won't have time to try the commands that you gave me - I'll give it a go tonight and see how it goes. I'll keep you posted!

Well I did as you said... but I must be missing something I got to the make mrproper command but gotthe following message:

adrian@linux:~> cd /usr/src/linux
adrian@linux:/usr/src/linux> su
Password:
linux:/usr/src/linux #
linux:/usr/src/linux # make mrproper
/usr/src/linux-2.6.13-15/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 11: gcc: command not found
/usr/src/linux-2.6.13-15/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 12: gcc: command not found
make: gcc: Command not found
CLEAN include/asm include/linux/autoconf.h includelinux/version.h
linux:/usr/src/linux #


So what am I missing?? If you read my posting above you will see that I think I do have gcc installed.

Thanks for the help.

Just install (under package selections):
1. c/c++ compiler
2. kernel development
3. advanced user

That should do it.

Thank you

Hi again

I did what you said and installed the three packages (there seemd to be hundreds of them when the installation proceeded!). I then rebooted, just to bake sure everything was running fine.

I then did the above 'make mrproper' again and got.... exactly the same error messages!
Doh!

You can check if the package is properly installed with 'rpm -q gcc'. If this command returns something like 'gcc-<version>', I have no idea why you get that message.

I recommend to read a HowTo about kernel compilation, so that you get an idea of what you are doing. I am sure you'll find something in the LQ Wiki.

Hmmm, I get the message:

package gcc is not installed

Even I can understand that one! I'll go away for a bit and see what I can do. Thanks for the help.

Hi again.

I have been struggling trying to find gcc on my Suse 10 disc and after hours searching the 'net and this forum, I have found that the Linux Format magazine DVD that I have is not as complete as they claimed. Apparently the gcc tools are missing from the disc - this is why I'm having such a problem!

Here is a report on the Linux Magazine website:

Click here

" We are very sorry about the confusion on our Suse Linux 10 DVD. It appears that Suse did not include some of the development tools that we thought would be on the DVD. We are unclear on why it was done this way, but it seems that Suse does not always include all the packages with DVDs such as ours. We still believe our DVD is more complete than the OpenSuse versions distributed with other magazines, but clearly it was our mistake to call it a "Full" version and to not mention that some tools like gcc weren't included.

We agree that gcc is a pretty fundamental tool, so much so that it is difficult to think of Linux without it. The important thing to remember, though, is gcc is free software. All the tools that were part of OpenSuse but were not included on the Linux Magazine OpenSuse DVD can still be installed through Yast."

So I'm not quite the total idiot that I seem!!

Anyway, thanks to all of you who have helped me, as your guidance has led me to solve one of the problems that I had.

As I can't yet get online with Linux (and so install online packages) can anyone tell me where to get the missing package from? I'm still a newbie, so please don't just point me in the vague direction.

Thanks!

You need to get online somehow and download the package directly from a server.
E.g. here: ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/distr...901-3.i586.rpm
You may need some other packages, like make and glibc-devel as well.

A better solution would be to download the EVAL-DVD-ISO. This will give you probably more packages than on your DVD.

Thanks for the link abisko00 I downloaded it but as you suggested, on installation YaST reported that I needed the glibc-devel package too. Sorry to ask of your time again, but could you please tell me where to find a copy of this?

I looked up the Novell download site and searched for Suse 10. On the page shown here I have the choice of 5 CDs to download. as this is rather a long undertaking, could you please tell me which of the discs I might need, or alternatively can you please point me to a link for just the package I want. Unfortunately I can't get Linux online until I have sorted this out so I have to keep finding links in XP, then reboot into Linux etc..

many thanks
Adrian

You'll find glibc-devel under the same link, a couple of packages down the list:
ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/distr...rce/suse/i586/

I can't tell you which CD you need to download. I usually get all of them, to have them at hand if something is missing.