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It's been almost 3 weeks now, and I've gone through absolute hell trying to get this (bleep, bleep) Broadcom adapter to work on my Dell D800. Kernels, libs, dependencies, a good 30-40 installs, threads, googles..
2.6.2 Has (supposedly) native TG3 support that works for the broadcom card. I won't go into why I don't just compile that kernel (because I have, about 40 times) onto my current install.
So I'm looking to grab an ISO of the latest unstable anything, that might, via the base install, have tg3 support. (woody doesn't). I don't really care what the security issues are, if it's called "The version that will make your dog die, your hair catch on fire and summon a swarm of bees to attack you in your office Build", I'm just looking to figure out (without downloading countless more files in addition to the almost 6 gigs of junk I've stacked up so far) which is the latest version, and hopefully to install from an ISO rip of it.
It's gotta be Debian for the project I'm working on, unfortunately.
So there's an actual release called just "Debian Unstable"? Can you possibly toss me a link where I can DL the ISO? Everywhere I go I seem to simply get raw FTP's with tons of files, but nothing clearly denoting that "This is the newest, download this, noob!".
I'll caution you though, the new installer doesn't work great. It is under heavy development (as usual). You may find it a lot easier to install using a Knoppix CD and then compile your own 2.6 kernel. Or if you can wait a few weeks, a Knoppix CD with a 2.6 kernel is coming.
There is an installer for Sarge/Testing. I heard it was a bit dodgy for a while but its probably improved by now. I believe it is a net installer where you install a small stub installation and download must stuff over the net.
People who run unstable get there by a variety of indirect means, eg installing woody or one of a plethora of debian based distros like bonzai (aka miniwoody), lord sutches creation, mepis, libranet etc and then apt-getting to unstable.
Really all I need is a base, bare-bones system on a Dell D800, with (most importantly) the Broadcom adapter working, and XWindows (which I've pre-done my homework for, and will cross my fingers about).
I tried woody, but ran into a ton of issues with the 2.2.x (I believe) kernel. So I went to 2.4, which built fine but gave me a ton of strange errors trying to insmod the bcm5700.o file for the broadcom.
Then I read that 2.6.2 had native tg3, which supported the Broadcom. So I said "Hooray, I'll run that!"
With that kernel, though I must admit that it seems that eth0 comes up. Gives me hope, if I can ever get it to boot.
Been a bit of a pain getting this guy installed, as you can imagine. If the Sarge release has a net install that supports my Broadcom, I'll be a happy guy.
Here is an idea: Extract a debian kernel image and use that config file for compiling your own kernel. Just go to www.debian.org and find the 2.6.2 kernel image file from unstable and save it to your hard drive, then:
dpkg -x kernel-image-2.6.2*.deb /tmp
cp /tmp/boot/config-2.6.2* /usr/src/linux/.config
cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig
Now you can make a few tweaks to the configuration and save it before compiling your own kernel. At least that way you know you are starting with a working configuration file. I've always run into trouble configuring a kernel from scratch. ....In fact, I like this idea so much I might try upgrading from my 2.4.24 kernel
Why not get 2.6 from www.kernel.org and compile it to fit your need?
You do not really need unstable unless you want to experience those latest softwares.
I believe woody can get most of your jobs/projects done without problem.
I was suggesting compiling the kernel from www.kernel.org, just using the config file from the kernel in the debian unstable tree. The problem is kernel configuration from scratch is difficult, but you can make a few system specific tweaks to the kernel configuration file if you start with a working configuration.
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