Re: FNL classes

From: Fielder George Dowding <fgdowding@iceworm-enterprises.org>
Date: Sat Dec 01 2007 - 16:01:15 AKST

Arthur Corliss wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, Fielder George Dowding wrote:
>
>> Arthur, you have already put together a distribution. Perhaps you
>> could expand your talks over several sessions to how you put together
>> your distribution. I imagine there are plenty of why's and wherefore's
>> to consider not to mention the scripts and whatnot needed to set up a
>> distribution so it can be installed by someone other than the author.
>
> <shudder> How about I tell you how I do it now, rather than detail years of
> comedies of errors? ;-) Talk about learning the hard way....
>
> I'd be happy to go over that, but that has the potential to need to be
> several talks, rather than just one. If there's more of you interested I
> can start putting together some information on that.
>
> --Arthur Corliss
> Live Free or Die

Right on the mark Arthur! I see such an effort as building upon the idea
of compiling one's own kernel.

Before taking something like this on, please do put your notes up on the
web site. Also, you just touched on cross-compiling, so perhaps at some
future time, there may be interest in cross-compiling for the many
systems with some flavor of an embedded operating system. This, at the
moment is not my cup of tea, but I do have this Palm Z22 which has some
kind of micro-processor inside that does all the clever things that are
presented to me through its GUI.

Perhaps, after a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, you could start
thinking about sharing your _lessons_learned_ (not comedies of errors,
please). I have tried to setup my own Knoppix using the utilities that
are available, but I just did not have enough spare time to step though
their version of the Hokey-Pokey to come up with an _Iceworm_ knock-off
of Knoppix.

Another thought lurking in the back of my mind is setting up my own
Debian knock-offs - one for an Internet server and one for the Iceworm
Desktop. Just as you included the init process (albeit briefly), I want
these distributions to be inetd free from the start. So, the ball is in
your court Arthur.

Incidentally, I may have to compile a kernel for my HP zv6201cl (AMD64
now with 2G RAM w00t). Apparently the the current Debian kernel for
etch (2.6.18-5) is broken as far as the wireless module for the Broadcom
4318 chip (bcm43xx) is concerned, and a later kernel seems to be the
corrective action. Yes, I have tried ndiswrapper and gone through the
Hokey-Pokey to extract the firmware and the Windows driver. The light
comes on, but there is no-one home.

The sad part is I had just gotten the WPA (personal) session working
with the new Linksys 300N wireless broadband router at All Saints. Those
who were at the Laboratory Session a couple of Friday's ago may remember
that the machine froze with a kernel panic when I attempted to boot
immediately after installing the new RAM. At the time I thought some
file on the hard disk had gotten corrupted (I had not correctly
re-connected the keyboard to the mother board). It was the attempt, with
Doug's help, that led me to understand the bcm43xx kernel module breaks
the system.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards       Debian/GNU Linux
Fielder George Dowding, Chief Iceworm        "etch" Testing
dba Iceworm Enterprises, Anchorage, Alaska   User Number 269482
Since 1976 - Over 30 Years of Service.       "Seth" 186667
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Received on Sat Dec 1 15:57:38 2007

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Sat Dec 01 2007 - 15:57:38 AKST