LinuxQuestions.org - Kernel build question

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Kernel build question

With my last two cd's I had I downloaded slackware 10.2 and installed it on an old computer just to tinker around with it and see what I could do with it. For fun, you might say...:D.

Anyway, I downloaded and built the kernel 2.6.26, and tweaked with only a very 'very' few things. After reading a bit that menuconfig would use the old configuration files, so I used that, however, I do believe I should have copied the old configuration files from the old kernel directory. Eh, I'll do that tomarrow when I have more time to reinstall it.

Anyway, I had enabled zd1211rw to load, which it did. I installed wpa_supplicant, dbus, and the zd1211 firmware.

After rebooting, everything went rather well, or at least it seemed to do so. X ran just fine, wpa_supplicant didn't give me errors about missing libraries, etc, etc...

However, when I typed in iwconfig, wlan0 wasn't there. Or at least eth0/1, or whatever name the kernel/service/whatever might have given the wireless adapter. However, there was a new name, sit0, but it's not the wireless adapter either.

I remembered something about having to use this number found through lsusb "050d:705c" but don't remember exactly what it was.

So my first question is, what do I do about getting slackware 10.2 to see the wireless adapter, or was building the 2.6.26 kernel the wrong thing to do?

Second question, when I lsmod, I've noticed it only lists 3 things, not the usual longer list. mac80211, cfg80211, and zd1211rw are the only things listed.

So, is the problem that I didn't use the correct old config and just replacing the config file with the old one from the 2.4.x directory would fix that or what?

Hopefully, I'm not coming off too newbie like. I'm not looking for too many answers, but wouldn't mind a helping hand to guide me in the right direction.

This was only a test run for now, just to see what I could do. I have already made plans for downloading the zd1211 drivers and adding them to the older kernel, so if that's the best way to go, then no one answer, I'll figure out it on my own...:)...

Thanks...

It depends on how you installed it, you need to provide more info on what exactly you did, did you install the modules too ? "make modules_install" ? I've built many kernels simply by using an old .config to start off and tweaking it to my liking. It has worked great.

A quick rundown of what I do:

Code:

make mrproper



# now copy in the old .config



make menuconfig



# tweak whatever you want



make



# at this point I make sure /lib/modules/2.6.?? does not exist and will not be overwritten by the new modules



make modules_install



# remove the old

rm -f /boot/config.old

rm -f /boot/System.map.old

rm -f /boot/vmlinuz.old



# rename the present

mv /boot/config /boot/config.old

mv /boot/System.map /boot/System.map.old

mv /boot/vmlinuz /boot/vmlinuz.old



# copy in the new

cp arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz

cp System.map /boot

cp .config /boot/config



# change permissions of vmlinuz

chmod a-rwx,u+r /boot/vmlinuz

Change bootloader options if needed and you're good to go. (remember with lilo you need to run /sbin/lilo to apply changes in /etc/lilo.conf)

I had followed this one here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-2.6.0-127095/, and I did use make modules_install.

Woops...I just reread through the thread again, I missed make mrproper. That's the only thing I didn't do.

There was only one error when I typed in make install, it just said that /dev/sda doesn't exist, which it shouldn't anyway. Then reran it and there were no errors.

/lib/modules/2.6.xx...Didn't think about that one, but there shouldn't have been a dir, for Slack 10.2 came with 2.4.xx.

I'll copy over the old config for 2.4.xx and add the zydas driver. I just wrote down your setup as well as what was written on the thread I showed and I'll give that a try tomarrow and see what happens. This time not forgetting mrproper...

Thanks

"make mrproper" is not absolutely necessary, but it does make sure everything is ready for configuring and compiling, usually it just fixes any broken symlinks.

Turns out I didn't have to do what I thought I had to do, so I was able to recompile it...I guess the config file wasn't the correct one, or I missed something else.

Either way, it loaded more modules this time. I modprobed zd1211rw, but when I ran lsmod it doesn't show mac80211 using it. Well, actually lsmod doesn't show anything is being used.

Anyway, anyway...I'll just do a 'lot' more reading and perhaps I'll be able to buy some of the books I've found in the book reviews here and give a try later.

Thanks for your help...

If you want a very good, free, online book try:
http://www.kroah.com/lkn/