comm device driver concepts

[Bob]

About 8 yrs. ago I tried to install modem drivers, and completely
failed for both full modem and Winmodem cards, although when I shipped
them to an expert, she was able to get both running in her Linux box.
Now I'm trying to install a USB wireless adapter (which came with a CD
with compressed Linux driver files), and I think I'd have a better
shot at this if I knew some general concepts.

What if I naively parked the unpacked driver files in /dev and then
tried to mount a made-up file name to a point thusly defined? Would
there then be a way of associating programs to that "file" usefully?
Piping data to & from there to comm programs? Could I get this USB
thingie into the fstab pretending it was a file system of variable
parameters?

What I'm trying to get at is whether I can treat any peripheral,
whether storage or I/O, a whirling disc, something passing data thru
in serial, parallel, packet, or any other form as the same, or whether
those low-level details make a difference at the level of commands I
could use. It might help if I had a diagram of the connecting parts
so I could identify the various pieces necessary to move data, so I
could answer for myself, like, duh, these are or aren't equivalent.
And so I could look at the file names and icons that unpacked from
that driver CD and have a pretty good idea what I should do with
them. As it is now, I don't know which of them are executable (or
could compile to something executable), which of them contain
ancillary data for an executable, and which of them might just contain
trivia. TIA.

Robert

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 03/28/2013 09:34 AM, Bob wrote:
> About 8 yrs. ago I tried to install modem drivers, and completely
> failed for both full modem and Winmodem cards, although when I shipped
> them to an expert, she was able to get both running in her Linux box.
> Now I'm trying to install a USB wireless adapter (which came with a CD
> with compressed Linux driver files), and I think I'd have a better
> shot at this if I knew some general concepts.
>
> What if I naively parked the unpacked driver files in /dev and then
> tried to mount a made-up file name to a point thusly defined? Would
> there then be a way of associating programs to that "file" usefully?

> Piping data to& from there to comm programs? Could I get this USB

> thingie into the fstab pretending it was a file system of variable
> parameters?
>
> What I'm trying to get at is whether I can treat any peripheral,
> whether storage or I/O, a whirling disc, something passing data thru
> in serial, parallel, packet, or any other form as the same, or whether
> those low-level details make a difference at the level of commands I
> could use. It might help if I had a diagram of the connecting parts
> so I could identify the various pieces necessary to move data, so I
> could answer for myself, like, duh, these are or aren't equivalent.
> And so I could look at the file names and icons that unpacked from
> that driver CD and have a pretty good idea what I should do with
> them. As it is now, I don't know which of them are executable (or
> could compile to something executable), which of them contain
> ancillary data for an executable, and which of them might just contain
> trivia. TIA.
>
> Robert

Which distribution are you running?

Nearly any GNU/Linux should let you use a file management utility to
examine the contents of the compressed files on the CD.
In Mandriva the file management utility Dolphin contains links to access
to the installation utility as well as file decompression for
examination of contents or extraction of the contents into their own
subdirectories. The same facility is available in PCLinux OS and
I would imagine the same for Kubuntu though I don't know about
all the others.

bliss

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 28/03/13 16:34, Bob wrote:
> About 8 yrs. ago I tried to install modem drivers, and completely
> failed for both full modem and Winmodem cards, although when I shipped
> them to an expert, she was able to get both running in her Linux box.
> Now I'm trying to install a USB wireless adapter (which came with a CD
> with compressed Linux driver files), and I think I'd have a better
> shot at this if I knew some general concepts.
>
> What if I naively parked the unpacked driver files in /dev and then
> tried to mount a made-up file name to a point thusly defined?

why would you do that?

> Would
> there then be a way of associating programs to that "file" usefully?
> Piping data to & from there to comm programs? Could I get this USB
> thingie into the fstab pretending it was a file system of variable
> parameters?
>

no. Its not a file sysem thingie, its a wifi adapter, and its driver
will map it from a genersic usb device into a 'network interface'

> What I'm trying to get at is whether I can treat any peripheral,
> whether storage or I/O, a whirling disc, something passing data thru
> in serial, parallel, packet, or any other form as the same,

no.

Thats why you have drivers. To map whatever the device is supposed to DO
into the appropriate part of the operating system where the right set of
tools will recognise what it is.

All USB is, is a way to talk to it. It says nothing about what sort of
converssation you may then have.

you wont have much luck telling wifi adapter to 'read track three,
sector 9' will you?

or whether
> those low-level details make a difference at the level of commands I
> could use.

that's why you have an operating system,

So that rawdevice /dev/usb/wahetevr also appears as /dev/wlan0 or
whatever, and an interface that behaves like say an ethernet interface
behaves.

It might help if I had a diagram of the connecting parts
> so I could identify the various pieces necessary to move data, so I
> could answer for myself, like, duh, these are or aren't equivalent.
> And so I could look at the file names and icons that unpacked from
> that driver CD and have a pretty good idea what I should do with
> them. As it is now, I don't know which of them are executable (or
> could compile to something executable), which of them contain
> ancillary data for an executable, and which of them might just contain
> trivia. TIA.
>
> Robert
>

put the CD in your drive and simply point your file browser at it.

You will see what is 'inside'.

If you want, copy the stuff to a directory.

In general you will need to install the driver using IIRC (years since
Ive done it by hand) insmod.

that's about ALL you should have to do. Then if its what it should be,
the device driver will make the hardware appear as ' just another'
networkable device. Probably /dev/wlan0 or something.

But with luck there will be a script or a file on the disk that says
'run me and I will install all you need'

trust the gurus and run it.

--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

[Bob]

On Mar 28, 12:02 pm, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4e...@dslextreme.com>
wrote:

>         Which distribution are you running?

A boxed set of Red Hat I bought in maybe 2004. Kernel is 2.4ish. I
installed the K desktop environment, which I'd used in my previous
install'n, a dual-boot affair on a computer rescued from the alley
(literally).

I just installed it on a new-to-me computer. During install'n it
asked whether I wanted to install contents from any "other" disc. At
that point I tried the mini CD that came with this Realtek USB
wireless 802.11n adapter. (I had previously used its install.exe
successfully in Windows.) However, when fed that disk in response to
that prompt, Red Hat install'n seemed to hang with blank screen.

So I copied it later onto my hard disk, self-inflated its compressed
files, and wound up with a couple of directories labeled "Linux", each
containing 3 or 4 files of type unknown (to me). Their names indicate
them to be relevant to about 3 different closely related models of
dongle. A legible text file pointed me to a WWW page for an updated
driver, but that'd probably involve my having to download it on this
computer (that I'm accessing Usenet with) via Windows, then taking it
to the other via flash device.

But I'm also interested in how this sort of thing works
theoretically. As in block diagrams or the like. As in, the data in
this box is in form X, and in this box form Y, the pipeline between
them converting it is called a whoozis. The driver I imagine just to
be a program delivering data in "rows" or "columns" (conceptually)
either directly to/from USB or to/from some other processing layer
done by Linux between the driver and USB. At the other end, the
programs that would use that driver have to know how to call it. It
would make sense for the driver program to be parked in root's /dev
(rather than user's /dev, since I'm the only user).

Robert

[Bob]

On Mar 28, 12:30 pm, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

> On 28/03/13 16:34, Bob wrote:

> > About 8 yrs. ago I tried to install modem drivers, and completely
> > failed for both full modem and Winmodem cards, although when I shipped
> > them to an expert, she was able to get both running in her Linux box.
> > Now I'm trying to install a USB wireless adapter (which came with a CD
> > with compressed Linux driver files), and I think I'd have a better
> > shot at this if I knew some general concepts.
>
> > What if I naively parked the unpacked driver files in /dev and then
> > tried to mount a made-up file name to a point thusly defined?
>
> why would you do that?

Because I'm an optimist, and think, hey, maybe it's transparent as to
what's on either end. Maybe Linux doesn't need to know whether the
data coming in & going out are delivered in ways specific to the
machine. Like, between the driver and the OS, they have ways to
recognize without being told by me how to send & receive the data.

> Thats why you have drivers. To map whatever the device is supposed to DO
> into the appropriate part of the operating system where the right set of
> tools will recognise what it is.
>
> All USB is, is a way to talk to it. It says nothing about what sort of
> converssation you may then have.
>
> you wont have much luck telling wifi adapter to 'read track three,
> sector 9' will you?

That's true if the adapters are told such things. I didn't know what
they were being told. For all I knew until you told me otherwise,
Linux could've been saying, "You there, at that desk, I don't care
what your job is, get me Bob", and then if the guy at that desk is a
drive controller it says, "This thing here is a disc, and I've been
keeping track of where named things are on it, so I'll turn it until I
find Bob," and if the guy at that desk is a wifi driver, it says,
"This thing is a radio, so I'll let it answer me when I radio for Bob,
and label whatever comes back as Bob."

> put the CD in your drive and simply point your file browser at it.
>
> You will see what is 'inside'.
>
> If you want, copy the stuff to a directory.

Alas, I'd already done so, and while I see some neat icons, I've no
idea what they mean. I don't know which are executable, although I
gather that the .inf files just hold data.

I gather, however, that I can at least plug in the USB device without
a driver and have listed exactly which model it is, so I can choose
between the closely-related ones supplied from the CD. I gather
there's a "lsusb" command to do so, analogous to the "ls" for a file

directory.

> In general you will need to install the driver using IIRC (years since
> Ive done it by hand) insmod.

Should I try "man insmod" for info?

> that's about ALL you should have to do. Then if its  what it should be,
> the device driver will make the hardware appear as ' just another'
> networkable device. Probably /dev/wlan0 or something.
>
> But with luck there will be a script or a file on the disk that says
> 'run me and I will install all you need'

That's what a friend advising me was hoping for too. From KDE, I
would just double click on icon after icon until one "caught" like
that, and then it would proceed like the install.exe in Windows.

Robert

[Michael Black]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2013, Bob wrote:

> On Mar 28, 12:02 pm, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4e...@dslextreme.com>
> wrote:
>
>>         Which distribution are you running?
>
> A boxed set of Red Hat I bought in maybe 2004. Kernel is 2.4ish. I
> installed the K desktop environment, which I'd used in my previous
> install'n, a dual-boot affair on a computer rescued from the alley
> (literally).
>

That's 9 years ago. It may not even do wifi well, there's a curve for
"new" things and it takes time for people to work out the details. If
nothing else, a later release will be easier to handle the hardware,
people would have come up with better interfaces and such.

The latest release is more likely to handle the hardware directly, ie it
knows about the more recent hardware and has drivers for it.

When I needed wifi suddenly last October, I pulled that wifi board that
I'd saved from a computer I found on the sidewalk, and stuck it in my
compuer. And I got the latest release of my favourite distribution,
figuring it would be better at wifi than the 2 or 3 year old release I was
using.

I never had to fuss.

You might also get a book about Linux, to get the philosophy. Your
message seems fairly garbled, enough that I can't be bothered decodig it,
but it seems like some of what you want is what Linux has done forever
(and Unix before it). But it's all organized, you can't randomly do
things.

Michael

[Trevor Hemsley]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:40:56 UTC in comp.os.linux.setup, Bob <doc...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Mar 28, 12:02ï¿œpm, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4e...@dslextreme.com>
> wrote:
>
> > ￜ ￜ ￜ ￜ Which distribution are you running?

>
> A boxed set of Red Hat I bought in maybe 2004. Kernel is 2.4ish. I
> installed the K desktop environment

That's ridiculous. Time to upgrade to something more recent. Any RH version
available in 2004 with a 2.4 kernel has been out of support for years - even if
it's RHEL3 which is the "enterprise" version with an extended support cycle, it
will have been out of support for at least 2 years and more likely, it's a
desktop distro and has been out of support since about 2006. That means there've
been no security updates to it and no patches. With the security vulnerabilities
that come round at regular intervals - like weekly recently - you need to be
running a distro that patches things.

If you're used to RH distro's then there are a few that you can choose from -
first there's Fedora which is bleeding edge and updates itself with hundreds of
MB of fixes monthly and tends to be unstable. Next there is RHEL itself or one
of its free clones like CentOS or Scientific Linux. RHEL is a pay for option
that comes with a support channel but is expensive since it's primarily
targetted as business use on servers. Both CentOS and SL are free-to-use
recompiles of RHEL with the RH branding (logos etc) removed but have no support
channels. RHEL is supported for 10 years from the original release so the
current 6.x will receive security updates until 2020 - so are CentOS/SL.

Any or all of those options will come with a 2.6 kernel and might even support
your USB wireless dongle out of the box. If it isn't then there's a third party
repository called ELRepo who specialise in providing driver support for things
that are not supported by the distro itself.

Do yourself a favour and move into this century properly and upgrade to
something that's supported and stands a chance of knowing about hardware made in
the last 5 years!

--
Trevor Hemsley, Brighton, UK
Trevor dot Hemsley at ntlworld dot com

[J G Miller]

On Thursday, March 28th, 2013, at 09:34:33h -0700, Bob pondered:

> What if I naively parked the unpacked driver files in /dev

There are no driver files in /dev

The directory /dev consists of device files which provide the
interface between the hardware and the respective kernel module
which contains the driver.

[Bob]

On Mar 28, 10:14 pm, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Mar 2013, Bob wrote:

> > On Mar 28, 12:02 pm, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4e...@dslextreme.com>
> > wrote:

> >>         Which distribution are you running?

> > A boxed set of Red Hat I bought in maybe 2004.  Kernel is 2.4ish.  I
> > installed the K desktop environment, which I'd used in my previous
> > install'n, a dual-boot affair on a computer rescued from the alley
> > (literally).

> That's 9 years ago.  It may not even do wifi well, there's a curve for
> "new" things and it takes time for people to work out the details.  If
> nothing else, a later release will be easier to handle the hardware,
> people would have come up with better interfaces and such.

> The latest release is more likely to handle the hardware directly, ie it
> knows about the more recent hardware and has drivers for it.

All I need is for this version to work enough to get me to the
Internet, at which point I expect to download updates eventually.

> You might also get a book about Linux, to get the philosophy.  Your
> message seems fairly garbled, enough that I can't be bothered decodig it,
> but it seems like some of what you want is what Linux has done forever
> (and Unix before it).  But it's all organized, you can't randomly do
> things.

I may some day. For now, last night I had my friend on the phone
explaining some of the layers of processing. I've been a Unix or
Linux user on & off (mostly on) since 1994, but never looked under the
hood, and my difficulty with installing wireless said to me this would
be a good time to learn more.

Robert

[The Natural Philosopher]

I would start by getting a CD/DVD of a more recent version.

If you have a GB of RAM., id suggest Mint personally, cos I like it
best. IIRC you can pick maya, cinnamon or KDE desktops, to taste.

That SHOULD pick up most hardware that is over a year old correctly. up
to and including the wifi dongle. And its an up-to-date kernel too.

When tats going., stick the driver CD in the drive and look for a README
file that SHOULD tell you what to do next.

remember, linux costs nothing to upgrade, so upgrade!

That gives you the nest chance of any hardware working to start with.

[Bob]

Thanks. Assuming these modules are programs that the kernel calls,
where is the traditional place in the file hierarchy for them to
reside?

Anyway, I got lsusb to tell me the model # of the wireless adapter,
which did help a little in discriminating between the files gotten
from the CD. Unfortunately the document'n therein is written in a
version of PDF apparently too recent for either the xpdf or gv reader
supplied in this Red Hat version to read. So I thought I'd read them
on the Frankenputer I got from my friend at the same time I got the
box I'm trying to install the dongle in. Frankenputer's a laptop
running Windows DarkLite, and Frankenputer powers off instantly when
it's thinking hard; seems to be a problem partly of temperature but
not entirely. Anyway, Frankenputer powers off consistently at exactly
the same point in attempted install'n of Acrobat reader.

So I think what I'm going to do is take my friend's suggestion and
swap in the CD drive out from Spare (the desktop I'm doing this
install'n in) and the hard drive into it from Christina. Christina's
the computer I rescued from the alley that had belonged to my
landlord's daughter by that name, and which was virus locked making
its 2003-ish Windows useless, so at that time I installed it as dual-
boot, Linux and Windows 98. I never managed to get its Linux to
operate a 56k modem, so I relied on the Windows 98 side to get online
via dialup, although Windows 98 didn't have a driver to run its video
in better than 16 color quality, so to get any good look at graphics I
had to go offline and reboot into Linux, which did have a good driver
for its video card. Christina's video and regular RAM have been
ailing, so Spare is supposed to sub for Christina, but I didn't want
to make Spare dual-boot; maybe I should've. (I also have Scooter, a
Pentium 2 that I made dual-boot, but that's another story.)

Anyway, a few years ago I downloaded onto Christina's Linux side a
Linux Adobe Acrobat reader that's pretty recent, so if I temporarily
install Christina's hard drive into Spare in place of its CD drive,
that should allow me to clone Christina's disc contents including the
Acrobat reader. My friend says that on booting into KDE off Spare's
current install'n, Christina's drive as a slave will automatically
mount with its partitions as is, and I'm guessing it'll be assigned an
hdb hierarchy in fstab and be given an icon that'll allow me easy
access at least as root if not as regular user.

Bob

[Bob]

> My friend says that on booting into KDE off Spare's
> current install'n, Christina's drive as a slave will automatically
> mount with its partitions as is, and I'm guessing it'll be assigned an
> hdb hierarchy in fstab and be given an icon that'll allow me easy
> access at least as root if not as regular user.

Or, if I screw up the boot order in the BIOS settings, it'll boot off
Christina's drive and mount the newer and bigger one as slave. That
should make hardly any difference, right?

[Michael Black]

On Fri, 29 Mar 2013, Bob wrote:

> On Mar 28, 10:14 pm, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 28 Mar 2013, Bob wrote:
>
>>> On Mar 28, 12:02 pm, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4e...@dslextreme.com>
>>> wrote:
>
>>>>         Which distribution are you running?
>
>>> A boxed set of Red Hat I bought in maybe 2004.  Kernel is 2.4ish.  I
>>> installed the K desktop environment, which I'd used in my previous
>>> install'n, a dual-boot affair on a computer rescued from the alley
>>> (literally).
>
>> That's 9 years ago.  It may not even do wifi well, there's a curve for
>> "new" things and it takes time for people to work out the details.  If
>> nothing else, a later release will be easier to handle the hardware,
>> people would have come up with better interfaces and such.
>
>> The latest release is more likely to handle the hardware directly, ie it
>> knows about the more recent hardware and has drivers for it.
>
> All I need is for this version to work enough to get me to the
> Internet, at which point I expect to download updates eventually.
>

Plug the computer directly into the router, and use the current
distribution to download a recent version. Then erase the old, install
the new, and start from there.

Or grab a small distribution, like Pupppy LInux, something that can be
downloaded fast because it's small, and use that to retrieve the new
release of a full blown distribution via wifi. If nothing else, so long
as the small distribution is kept up to date, it should work without any
effort, and tell you immediately that a recent linux will work with the
wifi card.

>> You might also get a book about Linux, to get the philosophy.  Your
>> message seems fairly garbled, enough that I can't be bothered decodig it,
>> but it seems like some of what you want is what Linux has done forever
>> (and Unix before it).  But it's all organized, you can't randomly do
>> things.
>
> I may some day. For now, last night I had my friend on the phone
> explaining some of the layers of processing. I've been a Unix or
> Linux user on & off (mostly on) since 1994, but never looked under the
> hood, and my difficulty with installing wireless said to me this would
> be a good time to learn more.
>

Your first message was so garbled that it's completely unfair to the rest
of us to expect us to answer your questions. You don't have the
rudiments, despite your claim of using Linux for a long time (that sort of
claim when the post says otherwise is usually the mark of the newcomer,
someone who wants to sound legit, like the times people post in the
electronic newsgroups say things like "I'm an engineer, but I don't know
how to solder..."), then it's no wonder you have problems. You should
have picked up some detail "since 1994".

If you don't even know how to install a package in your distribution then
you have to read a book, get some details down before you start asking
questions. Because you are clueless about what's going on, and until you
read at least something, you aren't speaking the same language as the rest
of us.

If you don't know enough of the underlying foundation, then obviously you
won't think that maybe a 2004 release of Linux won't have good support of
wifi, if you don't know the underlying foundation then you won't even know
where to begin to put some driver, assuming the driver is actually for
linux.

You don't have to know details, just enough philosophy to actually get
started.

Michael

[Bob]

On Mar 29, 12:39 pm, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Mar 2013, Bob wrote:

> > All I need is for this version to work enough to get me to the
> > Internet, at which point I expect to download updates eventually.
>
> Plug the computer directly into the router,

It's enough that my landlord's family gives me the password for their
Belkin wi-fi. I'm not about to ask to carry the box, keyboard, and
CRT upstairs to plug it all in there!

> Your first message was so garbled that it's completely unfair to the rest
> of us to expect us to answer your questions.  You don't have the
> rudiments, despite your claim of using Linux for a long time (that sort of
> claim when the post says otherwise is usually the mark of the newcomer,
> someone who wants to sound legit, like the times people post in the
> electronic newsgroups say things like "I'm an engineer, but I don't know
> how to solder..."), then it's no wonder you have problems.  You should
> have picked up some detail "since 1994".

I've been a user, period. I didn't have the motiv'n to look deeper
than the commands I needed.

Robert

[Bob]

On Mar 29, 10:43 am, Bob <docs...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Anyway, I got lsusb to tell me the model # of the wireless adapter,
> which did help a little in discriminating between the files gotten
> from the CD.  Unfortunately the document'n therein is written in a
> version of PDF apparently too recent for either the xpdf or gv reader
> supplied in this Red Hat version to read.  So I thought I'd read them
> on the Frankenputer I got from my friend at the same time I got the
> box I'm trying to install the dongle in.  Frankenputer's a laptop
> running Windows DarkLite, and Frankenputer powers off instantly when
> it's thinking hard; seems to be a problem partly of temperature but
> not entirely.  Anyway, Frankenputer powers off consistently at exactly
> the same point in attempted install'n of Acrobat reader.

Fortunately I found a free Windows PDF reader called Foxit that
Frankenputer was able to download & install without depowering.

This is kind of a manual bootstrap procedure I'm doing to get these
things running. Frankenputer came to me with a Broadcom wireless
installed, but not its driver. So I installed the same dongle that's
going to go into Spare. However, Frank powered off at the slightest
provoc'n while running the dongle. Eventually, though, I was able to
sneak up on Frank and get him to download the Broadcom driver without
depowering, and Frank is less likely to depower when accessing the
Internet by Broadcom than via the Realtek external radio.

I'm happy to defer the drive transplant between Christina and Spare
for now.

Thanks for the help & moral support, everyone. I'll update on
progress.

Robert

[J G Miller]

On Friday, March 29th, 2013, at 08:43:20h -0700, Bob asked:

> Assuming these modules are programs that the kernel calls,
> where is the traditional place in the file hierarchy for them to
> reside?

In the /lib/modules/{kernel_version} hierarchy.

Note that a compiled module for one kernel version will 99% probably
not work with a different version of the kernel, or even sometimes
the same kernel of a different distribution because of different
version of libc and compiler.

> Anyway, I got lsusb to tell me the model of the wireless adapter,

> which did help a little in discriminating between the files gotten
> from the CD.

Is that the Red Hat 2004 CD? How recent a model is the wireless adapter?

If it is only a few years old, it is highly improbable that it will
work with a 2004 era kernel. Also some wireless adapters need
firmware and special magic with ndiswrapper.

Without knowing what model of wireless adapter you have,
there can only be wild speculation about what you need to
do to get it to work.

In fact for the latest versions of distributions such as
Debian, Mint, openSusE, Ubuntu etc, you may not have to
do anything and "it will just work out of the box."

But for some basic understanding you really should read --

<http://www.linuxhomenetworking.COM/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch13_:_Linux_Wireless_Networking#.UVYZ9hxkeOQ>

As for Christina the Computer, take warning from

<http://www.imdb.COM/title/tt0075931/>

[Bob]

On Mar 29, 5:55 pm, J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG> wrote:

> On Friday, March 29th, 2013, at 08:43:20h -0700, Bob asked:
>
> > Assuming these modules are programs that the kernel calls,
> > where is the traditional place in the file hierarchy for them to
> > reside?
>
> In the   /lib/modules/{kernel_version}  hierarchy.
>
> Note that a compiled module for one kernel version will 99% probably
> not work with a different version of the kernel, or even sometimes
> the same kernel of a different distribution because of different
> version of libc and compiler.

Then would you advise compiling it into the kernel, rather than as a
module?

> > Anyway, I got lsusb to tell me the model of the wireless adapter,
> > which did help a little in discriminating between the files gotten
> > from the CD.
>
> Is that the Red Hat 2004 CD?  How recent a model is the wireless adapter?
>
> If it is only a few years old, it is highly improbable that it will
> work with a 2004 era kernel.  Also some wireless adapters need
> firmware and special magic with ndiswrapper.
>
> Without knowing what model of wireless adapter you have,
> there can only be wild speculation about what you need to
> do to get it to work.

It's recent, but the printed document'n says it'll go with "Linux 2.4
or later".

> In fact for the latest versions of distributions such as
> Debian, Mint, openSusE,  Ubuntu etc, you may not have to
> do anything and "it will just work out of the box."

> But for some basic understanding you really should read --
>

> <http://www.linuxhomenetworking.COM/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch13_...>

Thanks. One of the PDFs that came with the dongle had a block
diagram, the sort of thing I was looking for when I started this
thread. And it turns out to have an install'n script file with the
very likely title "install.sh" that somehow was invisible to me when I
first unpacked it. I think it actually took 2 rounds of inflation.

> As for Christina the Computer, take warning from
>
>        <http://www.imdb.COM/title/tt0075931/>

Is there a Christina in that?

Robert

[Bob]

On Mar 29, 5:55 pm, J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG> wrote:

> > Anyway, I got lsusb to tell me the model of the wireless adapter,
> > which did help a little in discriminating between the files gotten
> > from the CD.
>
> Is that the Red Hat 2004 CD?

No, sorry I didn't understand this Q before. I meant the mini CD that
came with the Realtek wireless USB adapters via Monoprice. lsusb
reports it as model 8176.

[Kirk_Von_Rockstein]

On 2013-03-28, Bob <doc...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>

> So I copied it later onto my hard disk, self-inflated its compressed
> files, and wound up with a couple of directories labeled "Linux", each
> containing 3 or 4 files of type unknown (to me). Their names indicate
> them to be relevant to about 3 different closely related models of
> dongle. A legible text file pointed me to a WWW page for an updated
> driver, but that'd probably involve my having to download it on this
> computer (that I'm accessing Usenet with) via Windows, then taking it
> to the other via flash device.

<snip>
> Robert


In the first directory /Linux/,
there should be a *readme* that gives you all the instructions
on how to compile, make and install the driver,if it infact will
do so with that old of a kernel and libs. The readme file has all the
instructions you need to install this driver. It will look something
like this-> http://pastebin.com/3kPnURLM

[J G Miller]

On Saturday, March 30th, 2013, at 00:07:06h -0700, Bob pondered:

> Then would you advise compiling it into the kernel, rather than as a
> module?

No, I was talking about trying to taking a compiled module from
one distribution or somewhere and trying that.

If you have the source code for the module (or maybe some source
code and a binary blob) and it says that it is for a particular
kernel version, then you need to compile that with the same
compiler and libc that came with the kernel you are using
and install that appropriately under /lib/modules/`uname -r`
and do a depmod.

> It's recent, but the printed document'n says it'll go with "Linux 2.4
> or later".

So if the kernel on the Red Hat is 2.4, you should be able
to compile as a module and use it. Maybe ;)

> I think it actually took 2 rounds of inflation.

Presumably the first to unpack the .sh shar file, and the second to
unpack the tar archive.

> Is there a Christina in that?

No, but there was a lesson to be learnt about computers that have
a mind of their own ;)

But whatever you do, don't get "overdrawn at the memory bank".

[Bob]

On Mar 30, 7:24 pm, J G Miller <mil...@yoyo.ORG> wrote:

> On Saturday, March 30th, 2013, at 00:07:06h -0700, Bob pondered:

> If you have the source code for the module (or maybe some source
> code and a binary blob) and it says that it is for a particular
> kernel version, then you need to compile that with the same
> compiler and libc that came with the kernel you are using
> and install that appropriately under /lib/modules/`uname -r`
> and do a depmod.
>
> > It's recent, but the printed document'n says it'll go with "Linux 2.4
> > or later".
>
> So if the kernel on the Red Hat is 2.4, you should be able
> to compile as a module and use it. Maybe ;)

The install shell script ran, but it chained to make, which spat back
that I had inactivated modules. Attempting make with the Makefile
that came from the dongle package produced a "no rule" error.

> > I think it actually took 2 rounds of inflation.
>
> Presumably the first to unpack the .sh shar file, and the second to
> unpack the tar archive.

It did. Interestingly, it seems the install.sh also called an
unzipper.

I'm afraid I'm going to need a lot of help reconciling where I'm left
with Realtek's instructions for manually altering the makefile and
configuration files and using make again. No success so far, and I'm
not sure I've made progress. Among the difficulties is that the
files, instructions, and configuration statements don't mention
exactly this model number of driver, but only 2 others (presumably
later ones, higher numbers in the last 2 digits), although in general
I see references to people installing these with "xx" for the variable
digits in the model number, so that gives me confidence it won't
matter.

Maybe the inactive modules are options I didn't take with this Red Hat
install'n. Interactive install'n of Linux asked whether I was
expecting to run a server, and since I wasn't, maybe it left out
modules that would've allowed modular compilation of comm drivers.

Robert

[Gordon]

On 2013-03-28, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
[snip]

>>
> put the CD in your drive and simply point your file browser at it.
>
> You will see what is 'inside'.

Now we are going places. This thread seems to have been on another track as
I understand things.

The files have an install script attached, so it will be nothing more than
running the install script and using the device.