Linux kernel help

[Whaleboy]

Anyone tried 2.6 test?

I'm downloading test 4 as I type, I heard the compilation procedure is different?

Also, how did it run? What worked, what didnt? Will XFree86 work (I'm using nvidias driver)?

How do I keep the option of loading my old one in lilo? I just reinstalled Slackware 9.0 again over Windows XP, because the latter was really getting on my nerves.

[Ari Rahikkala]

http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/post-halloween-2.5.txt is the #1 document on Linux 2.6.x for 2.4 users...

About the compilation and installation... this can be done in the manual way or in the automatic way (just like in 2.4), but the automatic way varies by distro and user... however, since you're using Slackware, it's highly probable that you'll feel comfortable using the manual way anyway.

The manual way is... configure the kernel (I use "make menuconfig"), compile it (in 2.6 all you need for this is "make" - not "make dep bzImage modules" as before). install the modules ("make modules_install") and install the kernel image. There is an install script ("make install") but I've never used it. Instead, when I switch kernels, I copy the new one over to /boot ("mount /boot; cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-") and update my grub.conf. You're running lilo and might keep your kernel images in some other directory, so you have to figure those differences out yourself.

AFAIK the "make install" script can automatically install new kernel images and add them to your bootloader's configuration if you're using lilo and your kernel images are in some senseful directory. I'm not sure if I would depend on it myself (without a rescue disk handy) if I used lilo, but if lilo.conf syntax is alien to you, go ahead and use it.

The "Known gotchas" section of the document I linked should tell you tall that you need to know be able to configure a 2.6 kernel properly (if you can already configure a 2.4, that is). Yes, you need to read it. I don't want to see you ask why you can't load any modules anymore simply because you forgot to install a new module-init-tools .

[Ari Rahikkala]

And on to how well it works... well, on desktop use with my box (AXP 1800+, 256 MB PC333 DDR-DRAM (yes, I know, that's too little), ATi Radeon 7500, and many other pieces of cheap, common commodity hardware), there's no noticeable change from the 2.4-ck series. It worked before, it works now, and it almost seems as if nothing at all has changed. And yes, I know that that's not true. But how well it runs what I do with it hasn't changed a lot.

I don't know the status of NVIDIA's drivers for sure, but I've gotten the idea from somewhere that they should work... with some patching and recompiling. You'll have to find out how to get them to work yourself, though, since I couldn't find the relevant information with a single Google search.

From the latest readme of NVIDIA's driver distribution:

All official stable kernel releases from 2.2.12 and up are supported;
"prerelease" versions such as "2.4.3-pre2" are not supported, nor are
development series kernels such as 2.3.x or 2.5.x. The linux kernel
can be downloaded from www.kernel.org or one of its mirrors.

Ergo, whatever you find will be from a third party...

[Asher]

Does 2.6test actually support Pentium Ms properly (with the enhanced speedstep), and do they properly shut down harddrives, wireless connections, etc. like Windows does after a certain period of time? Do the Radeon 7500 Mobility (M7) drivers actually support PowerMizer now?

Is the Cisco Aironet 802.11b mini-PCI adapter fully supported under Linux yet?

[mrmitchell]

While we're here, what is the best Linux distro for n00bs?

[Whaleboy]

Does 2.6test actually support Pentium Ms properly (with the enhanced speedstep)

I believe so, I think I read something about that on my lug. As for harddrives, I think 2.4 can do it properly, but you need to do some crazy stuff with apm that I cant get my head around. I have a feeling mandrake does that automatically, but until I try it I wont know.

Is the Cisco Aironet 802.11b mini-PCI adapter fully supported under Linux yet?

Probably not, but try hotplug.

I read somewhere that in order to get a good speed boost, you need to compile in "pre-emptive kernel". I dont think it will turn your computer into a bastion of neo conservatism, but from what I've seen it gives a nice injection of coffee into the blood, so to speak.

Remember Asher, 2.6 test are very very beta, if I were you, I'd wait until 2.6.1 stable comes out (I assume the 2.6 stable will still have bugs). I dont think the release will be the same debacle it was two years ago with the 2.4 release. After 2.6.1, then you may fire at will!

[Ted Striker]

What are the major enhancements in this kernel?

[geeslaka]

mrmitchell: I have used Slackware and Mandrake. I would say that Mandrake is better for n00bs who can't learn what they are doing and have large harddrives, and Slackware is for people who know what they are doing and what the want installed and don't want a lot of extra crap.

[Solly]

Mmm popcorn.

[reds4ever]

Linux help? you 've made your bed, now lie in it!

[Whaleboy]

What are the major enhancements in this kernel?

Its faster, it allegedly has more security mechanisms to use existing features, not sure about actual features. It has better USB support, and hopefully native XFS support! I'm using xfs until reiser4 comes out. I suspect that in terms of the user, things wont change much except for the basics of speed, stability and security. Developers on the other hand will probably have a field day!

Mandrake is best for newbies, but I'd wait until Mandrake 9.2 is released in about a month before you dive in. Dont get me wrong, 9.1 is good, but so close to an impending release, it seems a little antiquated after five months.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
What are the major enhancements in this kernel?

Read http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/post-halloween-2.5.txt . The ramble that would result from explaining all of it (and the technical backgrounds behind everything) would be a book long...

Originally posted by Asher
Does 2.6test actually support Pentium Ms properly (with the enhanced speedstep), and do they properly shut down harddrives, wireless connections, etc. like Windows does after a certain period of time? Do the Radeon 7500 Mobility (M7) drivers actually support PowerMizer now?

See http://tuxmobil.org/centrino.html . http://www.arstechnica.com/archive/news/1048565785.html . No searches for PowerMizer ("powermizer linux", "powermizer dri", "powermizer xfree86") provided relevant results for me, so I guess the answer to that question is no. I think this is an XFree issue instead of a kernel issue anyway...

[Asher]

Shame, I don't think I'll be putting Linux on my laptop if it can't support wireless networking (let alone the powersaving features I can turn on/off in Windows), powermizer on the Radeon to save energy, and screw around with APM stuff to get it to deactivate portions of the computer when idle.

I suppose it's rather impossible to have it automatically dim the screen by 1 click after every minute of idleness, like I can do in Windows, too?

Edit: Sweet, thanks Ari. Apparently my wireless mini-PCI is supported -- I lucked out and it's the only one IBM offers that has Linux support. http://www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/tableb...et-utils-linux

[Ari Rahikkala]

Well, that's a little problematic. I looked around a bit and found out how to set the brightness of a Sony Vaio laptop, but it's a long way from there to support of the feature you want on whatever laptop you're using... besides, there's no standard for changing the screen brightness (AFAIK) so it might be a little hard for X developers to write an interface for it. Just look at the code (this is from http://sjog.sourceforge.net ), it's pretty low-level:

#define _XOPEN_SOURCE 500
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <sys/io.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <malloc.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <getopt.h>
#include <linux/pci.h>
#include <sys/time.h>

#define BRIGHTNESS 0x96
#define DATA_REG 0x62
#define CST_REG  0x66

typedef unsigned short u16;

static void ecr_set(u16 value)
{
        while (inw(CST_REG) & 3) usleep(1);
        outw(0x81, CST_REG);
        while (inw(CST_REG) & 2) usleep(1);
        outw(BRIGHTNESS, DATA_REG);
        while (inw(CST_REG) & 2) usleep(1);
        outw(value, DATA_REG);
        while (inw(CST_REG) & 2) usleep(1);
}

static u16 ecr_get()
{
        while (inw(CST_REG) & 3) usleep(1);
        outb(0x80, CST_REG);
        while (inw(CST_REG) & 2) usleep(1);
        outb(BRIGHTNESS, DATA_REG);
        while (inw(CST_REG) & 2) usleep(1);
        return (inw(DATA_REG)&255);
}

static void usage()
{
        fprintf(stdout, "Usage: setbrightness [--read | ]\n");
        fprintf(stdout, "       Sets the screen brightness on a Sony Vaio\n");
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{

        ioperm(DATA_REG, 0x08, 1); 
        if( geteuid() != 0 )
                fprintf(stdout, "You must be root to use %s\n", argv[0]);

        else if( argc == 2 && strcmp(argv[1], "--read") == 0) 
            printf("%d\n", ecr_get());

        else if( argc != 2 || !isdigit(argv[1][0])) 
                usage();

        else
        {
                iopl(3);
                ecr_set(atoi(argv[1]));
        }

        return 0;

}

[Whaleboy]

I don't think I'll be putting Linux on my laptop

For once, you've mentioned the obvious!