Slackware compilation and WLAN stick - success at last (sigh!)
ernstoud
and herewith the results:
1.
I created a vmware (5.5 workstation, windows xp) machine with an IDE
disk and 512 Mb.
2.
Booted it with cdrom = slackware disk 1 ISO
3.
Did a fdisk /dev/hda and created two partitions, with second partition
as swap
4.
Made partition 1 bootable
5.
Ran slackware setup and installed A/D/L/N (full)
6.
Installed LILO, set timezone, keymap etc. and rebooted (fingers
crossed; it worked)
7.
Created an extra normal user, and home directory
8.
Tried the svn co https://bifferboard... thingy but failed since I had
to extra install sqlite as root since svn complained about not finding
a required sql library
9.
Started make (keeping my fingers still crossed; makes for awkward
typing :-)
I specified that I wanted mac80211, cfg80211 and zd1211rw as modules
10.
It aborted somewhere; missing were: sudo and diff. So I installed
these and re-ran make.
11.
It aborted right at the end; sudo didn't work since the normal user
was not in the sudoers list. So I added that and re-ran make.
12.
It aborted again since the host of slapt-get-0.10.2a-i386-1.tgz was
down so I downloaded it from somewhere else, copied it to my own
webspace and edited packages.txt. And ofcourse I re-ran make.
13.
I added iwconfig.
It worked!
Observations:
- please mention in the wiki that for svn to work a slapt-get -i
sqlite-3.6.14.2 is required
- same for sudo and diff
- there are some warnings during kernel compile (deprecated calls) and
package building (the
normal user is not allowed to update ldconfig.so) but nothing
harmful
- make clean does not work as non-root since it can't delete slack-
root
- the linux-2.6.x.compiled marker is not deleted by make clean
- I expected that a rootfs.tgz would be created but added that
manually to the Makefile
- I can't properly compile 2.6.30.5 since whatever I add/delete in
it's config; its size remains constantly too large (for 1 Mb. BB)
there is also an error when it tries to create bzImage and tells me to
set some debug config entry to see what's happening, but instead I
tried 2.6.32 and that compiles fine (into an 933 kb. bzImage)
So now that I could compile; could I finally (!) have a wireless
bifferboard? The answer: ... yes. But it took me a full evening.
Whatever I did when I connected the USB WLAN stick (Zydas 1211b) in
dmesg it said that it failed with error -2. Very, very helpful.
Especially since every link on google suggested that it had to do with
missing firmware. But those files were in the proper place...
So I tried whether it would work on my slackware virtual machine and
it did. Now I could compare that install and the dmesg messages from
the bifferboard. Turned out the -2 error appeared since I had to
compile in 'minstrel rate selection'. (Just before the error in dmesg
there was a line saying that PHY0's rate couldn't be set; on the
virtual machine at that point it said that PHY0 rate selection used
minstrel... so that gave me a clue.)
After I said Y during KCONFIG to select minstrel rate selecting and
recompiled, after inserting the stick all went well and I had a wlan0
device. But iwconfig complained about having no wireless extensions.
So back to the drawing board and find out how to compile in wireless
extensions... when I finally found out how and where in the config
file (still; a 93 kb. config file is better than a Windows 14 Mb
registry ;-) I finally now have a bifferboard that connects wirelessly
to my router. Hurrah...
Biff is proud of his vga/keyboard for a tenner (rightly so); I got the
zydas wlan stick for EUR 1,63 on ebay. (And it came with EUR 6,- for
postage; someone made a loss here.)
All the way I learned a lot... which is what this is all about I
guess.
Now onto putting the required ifconfig/iwconfig lines somewehere in
rc.d ... and finding out how to use slapt-get when the http://software.jaos.org
site is down...
Oh, and my vmware virtual disk is now 4.5 Gb. (Can be compressed.)
Ernst
Andrew Scheller
> 8.
> Tried the svn co https://bifferboard... thingy but failed since I had
> to extra install sqlite as root since svn complained about not finding
> a required sql library
Seems that Slacware doesn't do package dependencies :(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slackware#Dependency_resolution
Ahh, but apparently it's to cut down on feature bloat
http://slacksite.com/slackware/packages.html
> 12.
> It aborted again since the host of slapt-get-0.10.2a-i386-1.tgz was
> down so I downloaded it from somewhere else, copied it to my own
> webspace and edited packages.txt. And ofcourse I re-ran make.
You don't need to copy it to your own webspace. Just copy it into the
'dl' folder and Biff's scripts will spot it's already been downloaded.
> - I expected that a rootfs.tgz would be created but added that
> manually to the Makefile
I think the reason that it doesn't automatically create a rootfs
tarball, is that this is designed to run on a normal install (not
inside a virtual machine), so you'd just (using sudo) copy the files
from slack_root onto your USB drive.
There is a 'tarball' make target though, so you shouldn't have to
manually edit the Makefile.
> zydas wlan stick for EUR 1,63 on ebay. (And it came with EUR 6,- for
> postage; someone made a loss here.)
Heh, I often wonder how it makes sense for prices on ebay to be so low.
> All the way I learned a lot... which is what this is all about I
> guess.
Yay, well done :)
> rc.d ... and finding out how to use slapt-get when the http://software.jaos.org
> site is down...
Ouch, that's a bit unlucky! Hopefully it won't be down for long.
Lurch
Andrew Scheller
> and herewith the results:
Just for kicks I've just tried making the 'kernel_only' target
directly on my BB using the rootfs-9 setup.
Make sure you have at least 600 MB free diskspace before attempting
this! (yes, that's 600MB *just* for compiling the kernel)
> - please mention in the wiki that for svn to work a slapt-get -i
> sqlite-3.6.14.2 is required
For 'svn co https://bifferboard.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/bifferboard/slack'
to work in rootfs-9 you need to slapt-get:
subversion
sqlite #
apr-util # all subversion dependencies
apr #
neon #
and then for 'make kernel_only' to work you need to slapt-get:
python # apply_patches.py is a python script
patch # used by apply_patches.py
perl # kernel build uses perl
diffutils # kernel build uses cmp (part of the diffutils package)
Compiling the kernel with rootfs on a flash stick (using the default
.config) took just over 5 hours. (reminder: the compiled kernel ends
up as linux-2.6.30.5/arch/x86/boot/bzImage )
Later on tonight I plan to try it all again with a USB hard-disk, to
see if or how much quicker that makes things.
And if you then want to 'cd linux-2.6.30.5; make menuconfig' you need
to slapt-get:
ncurses
Be careful that you don't 'cd ..; make kernel_only' though, cos that
deletes the entire kernel tree - not what you want when it takes 5
hours to compile! ;) Instead just stay in the linux-2.6.30.5 diectory
and run 'make' by itself.
> - same for sudo and diff
I didn't have any permissions problems cos I'm still only running as
the root user on my BB, and I didn't attempt to build the rootfs, so
there was no need for sudo (i.e. it's not required for 'make
kernel_only').
Lurch
Andrew Scheller
>> It aborted again since the host of slapt-get-0.10.2a-i386-1.tgz was
>> down so I downloaded it from somewhere else, copied it to my own
>> webspace and edited packages.txt. And ofcourse I re-ran make.
>
> You don't need to copy it to your own webspace. Just copy it into the
> 'dl' folder and Biff's scripts will spot it's already been downloaded.
Ah, my mistake... you'd actually need to copy it into the dl directory
and then 'echo OK > dl/slapt-get-0.10.2a-i386-1.tgz.marker' so that
Biff's scripts 'know' it's been fully downloaded.
Lurch