Re: FNL classes

From: Arthur Corliss <acorliss@nevaeh-linux.org>
Date: Sun Dec 02 2007 - 08:47:56 AKST

On Sat, 1 Dec 2007, Fielder George Dowding wrote:

> 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.

<G> No pressure. ;-) All good ideas, and I'll see what I can put together.
Definitely needs to be an after Christmas gig, since it'll take me some time
to do the documentation. I have a family and a job, after all. ;-)

> 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.

I've heard the Broadcomm driver in the kernel is extremely unstable. As
good as their wired NICs work under Linux, Broadcomm is definitely a crappy
company when it comes to open source friendliness. Ironically, I haven't
done a lot of wireless NIC stuff in Linux, myself. Right now, the only
drivers I have used is for the Intel Centrino chipsets. I'm pretty happy
with how well those work, though having a userland regulation daemon is a
little annoying.

         --Arthur Corliss
           Live Free or Die
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Received on Sun Dec 2 08:48:10 2007

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