[cooker-amd64] Re: 2.6 custom kernel, now compiled and working here, but issues..

[Duncan]

Martin Jungowski [TU Munich] posted
<1075416807.3729.23.camel@Mandrake_AMD64>, excerpted below,  on Thu, 29
Jan 2004 23:53:27 +0100:

> Am Do, 2004-01-29 um 22.17 schrieb Pierre-Olivier Gaillard:

>> does your kernel support the Promise SATA controller that can be found 
>> on MSI K8T Neo boards ? I have tried 2.6.0 and 2.6.1 with no success ;-)
 
> Have you tried the pdc-ultra Kernel Module? The source is available for
> download, you just have to build it. I don't know what S-ATA controller
> chip MSI uses for their K8T-Neo but if it's the same that can be found
> on the ASUS SK8N, it should be working just fine.
> 
> Btw, I have the 20378 on my SK8N (IIRC). It's not in use cause so far, I
> don't have an S-ATA harddrive and only two IDE devices but I was curious
> enough to try ;)

SATA is still relatively immature on Linux, as is AMD64.  For those not
willing or able to do their own patch-level kernel maintenance at minimum,
I'd NOT recommend trying to use both, at this point.

Specifically, tho I've followed my own advice, I can note that both Mdk's
2.4 and 2.6 kernels have a Promise SATA driver in them.  In 2.4 it's
labeled experimental.  In 2.6 it's not, for whatever that's worth.

BTW1, I guess I'm lucky that I DID follow my own advice, and DON'T
have SATA drives, as I have a Silicon Image SATA chipset here, and the
driver labeled broken in 2.4 isn't even there in 2.6, yet, in the two Mdk
kernels available, anyway.  The next project would be to d/l and install a
copy of the official kernel tarball, and compare what it has to what Mdk
has, so I at least know at the make config, and .config file option level,
what sort of extra stuff Mdk includes (or removes) as option patches.

BTW2, I'm not sure in what context you meant "your" (meaning my) kernel,
but the one's I've been working with so far are simply the Mdk 2.6.2-rc1
SRPMs, the regular one, and the TMB one. There are apparently still enough
problems they hadn't yet been able to build in standard Mdk configuration
on AMD64. However, by just running the first part of the rebuild (the
single prep step, unpacking and applying patches to the sources), I got
workable kernel sources which I then did the usual make menuconfig, make,
make modules_install, make install, on (that skips a couple 2.4 steps, but
that's all that's needed with 2.6).  Some of my initially chosen config
wouldn't compile, but with a few menuconfig option tweaks, I soon got
something that would, and far slimmed down and more efficient, customized
for my specific system as well, than will be the official binary package
Mdk kernels.

Thus, if you meant "my" kernels in the sense that I'd chosen options and
build the binaries customized for my system, that's correct.  However, if
you meant "my" in the same sense that TMB has "his" kernels, with his own
patches as independently gathered and applied, I'm nowhere NEAR that level
of expertise as yet.  I've applied specific patches to a couple of
programs following specific instructions, and have done the same to the
official upgrade kernel patches, when going from a main release to a pre-
or rc- release, but have stayed away from the complexity of applying
multiple patches from discongruent sources, neither am I even CLOSE, yet,
to being able to release my own packages publicly.  Therefore, I don't
HAVE any kernels, in the sense of packages or for public release, and
probably won't for some time, if ever.

Of course, if all you need to know is how to extract the sources from the
rpms and get the linux-2.6.* sources ordered to the point where you can do
your own make *config and then compilation, as I did, that's simple
enough.  D/l the SRPMs from whatever mirror, and ask.  However, plan to
spend some time learning it if you haven't ever built your own kernels b4,
as it's definitely not something grokable in two minutes.. or even two
hours.  Two days and you might be beginning to make sense of it, enough to
make it worth the hassle of doing it yourself, anyway.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin