Hi all,

As the title suggests, I am another newbie. I am running SuSe 9.1, well I say running, I installed SuSe 9.1, big pat on the back for me. I think everything installed O.K. It all seems to run, KDe,Yast, it all seems O.K, but, I know nothing.
First thing I thought was, get connected to my network, I have a USB wireless network card, and a Dlink Wireless router, but oh am I an idiot, I havn't a clue, I read some stuff on this forum, but I'm still really none the wiser. I went and found a linux driver for my usb network card,its a .tar.gz file, read the readme, and it says I have to configure my kernel. So for my first Questions:

1 What version is my kernel

2 How do I configure my kernel, and where do I find it ?

I pressume I must do this from a terminal window, and as root, (I read this on the forum). I have looked through the tuts, but its all still new to me, so if there is a tut that explains any of this I am sorry, but I don't really know what to look for.

If anyone could point me in the right direction I would be very greatful.


and btw very nice forum.


Thanks all


Yoinker

First, check if you have a package kernel-headers or kernel-source installed. Or maybe it's named headers-something. The point is, you need the system headers that tell the compiler what your kernel is. It doesn't really matter what the version is as long as you have the accompanying header files on your system. Because kernel headers are needed to compile kernel modules, and the kernel sources are huge, most distros have a package for just kernel headers to be used in such circumstances. The version of your running kernel must be the same as the version of your headers. Do rpm -qa | grep kernel and rpm -qa | grep header and see if your kernel and headers packages are for the same kernel version. If not, find the headers package with the right version (good place to search for packages would be Pbone RPM Search ).
Second, unpack the source code anywhere on your system.
Third, go into that directory and try to compile the sources. Most of the programs nowadays follow the very simple routine. Once you're in the source directory, do this in order:

./configure
make
make install

I'm assuming that this driver comes as a kernel module. Sometime during install phase you should see the name of the module, as 'something.o' being copied to /lib/modules or similar location. Remember that name, because this is the name of your driver.
Then, as root again, do modprobe name-of-your-driver (without the .o part) and see if it works and if you're getting any error messages. If it works, the only step is to add your driver to the config file so that it starts automatically upon boot. Depending on the kernel version, it will be either conf.modules or modules.conf (or even a file within modules.conf.d/ directory if I remember correctly). I can't give you specifics right now but I'm pretty sure there is some info on this to be found within this forum.
If inserting module does not work, it maybe due to incompatibility between your kernel and your kernel sources/headers.

Hope this was helpful, good luck to you and thank you for choosing linux!

Thanks for your reply Draxen, when I try 'rpm -qa | grep header', I don't get any reply, I take it this means its not installed, the headers ?
Seems I need to do a lot more reading.
Thanks for info it has made things a little clearer.


Yoinker

Yoinker

I don't remember for sure if SuSe has a separate headers package, or not. But do you have kernel-source package? Usually you don't need headers nor kernel source unless you need to compile kernel modules. That's why most distributions do not install those by default.

draxen

I have got the kernel source, I downloaded it from Pbone search, thanks for the link, I also downloaded the make command, I installed both through Yast, I'm still a bit confused about the headers. Do I need to configure the kernel scource now ? I'm sorry if this is stupid, but I do appreciate the help.

Thanks


Yoinker

I seem to have the drivers installed, when I tryied to install I seen an error that it, couldn't find gcc, so I went and got it along with the other stuff needed, and it seems to be installed, I can see it when I use' lsmod'.

Now I just need to install the card.

Thanks for your help.


Yoinker

Whoa, congratulations!
I'm sorry, I didn't think that you may not have the compiler installed. This is an unfortunate recend trend, not to include it in the default installation.
To clarify the headers issue - kernel source DOES contain all the headers, so nothing else is needed. But since it's big, some prefer to install only headers and not the whole source, thus separate headers package.