Really need help with iPod and 9.2
 

Ok, here goes. I was really looking forward to getting 9.3 up and going because of, mainly, the iPod support.

However, I don't have the 100 bucks to buy the distro - and I have nothing but horrible luck trying to get it downloaded and burned.

Soooo, to make a long story short... I have decided to just stick with 9.2 till either I end up buying 9.3 (when I get the extra cash), or it comes out attached to one of our favorite magazines.

With that said - I wanted to ask for some real help. I've been trying over and over to find infomation on "how to" change the kernel to turn the EFI partition to "is not set."

I'll be honest - I have absolutely no idea how to do this. I spent some time copying all my important files to a disk, so I could go ahead and try (just in case I screwed the kernel up - I really wouldn't lose anything.

I'm new to Linux... some of the "how to" advice (which is very very good) that has been posted seems to assume you already know how to do certain commands... I don't,

Could someone please help. I need an idiot proof walk through.

This is a good experience for me to learn something. I've already tried google and other MB's, but the details (whcih are what I need most) are lacking.

Thanks.

Dave.

What is wrong about the description I posted on your last request?
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...61#post1599161

Maybe you could tell us where you hang and we can get through this together.

Ok....

I opened YaST and installed the kernel source.

Then I opened the terminal and switched to su.

After switching to su I then changed directories to: /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14-obj

From that point I am supposed to remove the .config

so I type rm .config and get "no such file or directory" but when I got that location I can see the .config file right there in front of me.

Ok... I got past that...

I wasn't putting dot in front of config.

I then went through "zcat /proc/config.gz > .config" just fine...

Now when I try to "make oldconfig" I get "no rule to make target 'oldconfig' Stop.

Same thing with the below commands "make xconfig and bxImage"

Not /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14-obj! These are not the 'real' kernel sources.

First check if the source and the kernel have the same version! This is important if you ran YOU updates previously. It is described in the link I gave you. Then switch to the directory /usr/src/linux-<output of 'uname -r'>. Don't forget to aquire access-rights for the user account (also described in that link).

Seems I was too slow.

Make sure you run these commands in the /usr/src/linux-<version> directory and that you have access rights.

I think I'm getting there... got up to the point of compiling - but am getting a new set of errors.

linux:/usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14 # make bzImage
/usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 11: gcc: command not found
/usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14/scripts/gcc-version.sh: line 12: gcc: command not found
CHK include/linux/version.h
HOSTCC scripts/basic/fixdep
/bin/sh: gcc: command not found
make[2]: *** [scripts/basic/fixdep] Error 127
make[1]: *** [scripts_basic] Error 2
make: *** [include/linux/autoconf.h] Error 2
linux:/usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14 #

How do I correct this? Or, what I am doing wrong?

So far so good! Now you need to install the gcc package (use YaST -> Install and Remove Software). I am not sure, but you may also need glibc-devel.

Got past the compiling... now in the process of copying the image to the boot directory.

linux:~ # cp ./arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinux-2.6.8-24.14
cp: cannot stat `./arch/i386/boot/bzImage': No such file or directory
linux:~ #

little odd...

If I interpret the above correctly, you run this command from root's home. But you need to run it from /usr/src/linux-<version>, since the . in ./arch/i386/boot stands for the current directory. You could also type 'cp /usr/src/linux-<version>/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz'

I got the new kernel installed... but I am still getting "cannot read superblock" errors...


However - what's more important is that I actually learned how to do something new. which I think is more vaulable than actually succeeding right off the bat.

Many many thanks abisko!! You have taught me something valuable.

I am glad you appreciate my help.
But we should also get your iPOD running ;)

I suppose you rebooted after you copied the kernel to /boot?
What is your 'dmesg' output after you plugged in the iPOD? Just the last lines that deal with USB.

On my SUSE 9.2, the iPOD is recognised with two partitions (sda1 and sda2), of which only the second one is able to be mounted. This should be done automatically by the submount system SuSE 9.2 uses by default.

dmesg = USB Mass Storage device found at 3


linux:/home/Dave # mount -t vfat /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod
mount: /dev/sda2: can't read superblock

linux:/home/Dave # mount /dev/ipod
mount: can't find /dev/ipod in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

Are the messages I get.

There should be a little more in dmesg. This is what I get:
The important part is that usb-storage is loaded as driver and that sdb is assigned as device node (on my system, sda is the HDD).

Your first mount command should work (if sda2 is present), but the second one is very unlikely to work, since SUSE doesn't create such a device-node as /dev/ipod

Did you convert the ipod into fat32, or is it still HFS+ formated (default)? In the later case, try 'mount -t hfs (or hfsplus) /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod'

Ok.... still no luck


I did the following steps:

1. uname -r (got linux-2.6.8-24.14) and rpm -q kernel-source = 2.6.8-24.14
2. su
3. chown -R Dave /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14
4. exit
5. cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14
6. rm .config (got a message saying no file existed)
7. zcat /proc/config.gz > .config
8. make oldconfig
9. make menuconfig (I went to File --> Partition Types --> EFI Support and unchecked it - then saved and exited the menu)
10. sed 's/^CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION.*/#CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION is not set/' .config >conf
11. mv conf .config
12. make bzImage
13. su
14. cp ./arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinux-2.6.8-24.14
15. cp ./System.map /boot/System.map-linux-2.6.8-24.14

16. Rebooted the system.

17. mkdir /mnt/ipod
18. mount -vfat /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod - did not work
19. mount /dev/sda2 - did not work
20. /mnt/ipod - did not work

21. switched use to root
22. went to /boot and opened the .config file (just to read) - found that EFI was STILL "y" - even after going through all those steps.

Couple of things that happened during the process.

1. rm .config did not work
2. make xconfig did not work

Everything else worked.

Also - in /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14 the .config is showing EFI as "is not set"

I did download all the tools I needed "gcc" and others and made sure I had the kernel sources.

I am not worried about messing up the system at the moment (I have everyting already backed up), so if push came to shove I'd just reinstall the OS.

Can anyone tell me what I did *wrong?" Why the EFI is still showing up as "yes?"

Thanks.

Would it help if I said you can learn the command and what they do by using the manual pages aka man pages. :)

on command window type "man <command>" so if you do "man zcat" you can see that its used to uncompress tar files. :)

thanks, very helpfull tip indeed...

but, it doesn't answer my question of where I went wrong with my recompiling of the kernel and why the iPod still wont mount.

anyone?


thanks

Ok - I think I'm almost there...

I decided to try something - so I switched user to root and renamed the config file in /boot to "old" and then copied the new config (the one made from the previous page) to the /boot directory. I then rebooted and tried to mount the ipod - it worked....

linux:/home/Dave # mount -t usbfs /dev/sda /mnt/ipod

I forgot that I needed to mount sda2 to access the data...

linux:/home/Dave # mount -t usbfs /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod
mount: /dev/sda2 already mounted or /mnt/ipod busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda is already mounted on /mnt/ipod
linux:/home/Dave # umount -t usbfs /dev/sda /mnt/ipod
umount: /dev/sda: not mounted
umount: /dev/sda: not mounted
linux:/home/Dave # mount -t usbfs /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod
linux:/home/Dave #

Looks as thought it worked.... now when I try to access the iPod though GTKpod - I am getting the same errors as before.

"'/mnt/ipod/iPod_Control/iTunes/iTunesDB' does not exist. Import aborted." <-- if from the GTKpod GUI not the terminal. I get this error when I try to import.

"iPod directory structure must be present before synching to the iPod can be performed." <-- is from the GTKpod GUI not the terminal. I get this error when I try to sync.

Is the issue now with GTKpod - or is it still a mounting issue with the EFI? I haven't tried to mount -t vfat /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod as the above mounting seemed to work.

Something else I found was that the icon for the mass storage USB is not showing up in /drives: -- As I thought it would.

So, what now?

Never mind - still getting cannot read superblock when I try to mount -tvfat /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod

I'll just log into Windows and use it till I eventually get a copy of 9.3

Thanks all for the help - this is just taking to much time for something not very important.

bump (just once)...

not ready to give up just yet...

Sorry, I was away for a while...

You did a couple of mistakes. The following steps are alternatives. I suppose you reversed the succesful first step by some syntax error in the second step. Either do
orNext: 'make xconfig' did not work because you need to install the package qt3-devel (this was described later in the thread I gave you the link).

And next:

Apart from a little syntax error ('mount -t vfat /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod'), this manual mounting will probably not work in SUSE 9.2. Mounting is done by submount, which will create a mountpoint automatically in /media. So if you want to use gtkpod, you have to change the moutpoint in its preferences to the one that submount creates, or create a symlink with the name /mnt/ipod to this directory. This is actually show here:
If you type 'cat /etc/mtab' on console, it will show you all mounted drives, and you can check the name of the created mountpoint.

I followed the instructions...

Still getting cannot read superblock.

I switched user to root and checked the /boot directory. The only "config" file in the /boot directory is config-smp. And, it is still showing EFI_Partition as "Y" -- when I go to the /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24.14 directory - there is a .config file and the EFI_Partition is set to: "is not set."

Not sure what else to do.

The config-file in /boot doesn't do anything. It is simply there as a backup. And it will show the configuration of the SUSE standard kernel. But this gives me an idea what could be wrong:

When you copied the new kernel into /boot, you named it by it's version number.
But the config file you found is called config-smp. That tells me you run a specialised multiprocessor-kernel. You need to name the new kernel exactly like your old kernel! So have a look how the file starting with 'vmlinuz' is called and overwrite this file with the new kernel (bzImage). Make a backup of the file, before you do this.

If you want to know if your actual kernel is correctly configured, type This will show the configuration of the running kernel.

And try to understand what you are doing. I don't want to explain every step in very detail. This would take too long and has been done already.