Hi,

I want to have my WLAn card working with my PVR, but this procedure is risky.

1) I have to patch the kernel sources
2) I have to recompile the patched & configure the kernel
3) I have to compile the modules
4) I have to boot with the new kernel while having all my settings in place.

As soon as i know this procedure should not be a problem in a "normal" linux machine, but i am affraid that if i do this process in a knoppmyth machine such as mine then some modules can go lost and i will be forced to reinstall knoppmyth. I dont know if this procedure can possibly done succesful in a box runninng knoppmyth.

Here is my plan:

- unpack the kernel sources:
cd /usr/src
sudo bzcat linux-2.4.25-chw.tar.bz2 | tar -xvf -
cp linux/.config linux-2.4.25-chw
sudo rm linux
ln -s linux-2.4.25-chw linux
cd linux-2.4.25-chw

- apply the patch:

bzip -cd /path/to/patch-2.x-prism54.patch.bz2 | patch -p1
make menuconfig (make my changes)

- And now, How dangerous is the following command in a knoppmyth box?

#make oldconfig dep

or this plain command?

#make dep


- then i have to run 3 commands still

make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install

But I have a feeling that my knoppmyth configuration will not survive making dapendencies/modules.

I have another way to go and that way is updating to a 2.4.28-pre1 kernel

But that is risky as well.

What else i can do if i dont want to wait for newer release of knoppmyth to get the my WLAN card working?

Thx for your time && Reg /T

I am still working on this and didnt find out a way of how to get this working properly.

Another question in the same topic:

Which way is the best for compiling a
knoppmyth kernel?

I saw that knoppmyth R4V4.1 has a initrd partition, so i guess option 2 is possible.

1) For a kernel.org source:
make-kpkg --revision=99:custom.1.0 kernel_image

2) For a Debian kernel-source package:
make-kpkg --initrd --revision=99:custom.1.0 kernel_image

Do anyone knows exactly which way is best?

Reg /T

Are you sure you need to do all this to get your WLAN card working?

I have installed a 802.11 card with no problems using the ACX100 drivers (http://acx100.sourceforge.net), and didn't have to touch the kernel. Search for my posts, and you'll see detailed instructions. I gather it is a bit limited and depends on your chipset.

Alternatively, a friend of mine used NDISwrapper (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/) , and was successful as well (granted, this is a less *pure* approach, but it got the job done).

Thx 4 your post.
I do this 4 phun and because i want to learn more about debian.

By the other hand , ndiswrapper has my card listed so i will give it a try, but at the prism54 ( the module my card use) they say that the kernel has to be patched and the support for this module appears the first time at 2.4.28 kernel.
Probably this can be a work around, i have seen things like this b4.

Reg /T

Hi,

Thx to the Knoppmyth folks 4 the great work.

More on this topic:

The recompiled kernel was to big ( i did a make old config).

So, is out there a mini-howto about how to recompile a kernel & or install a newer version in a such heavy module depended distro as knoppmyth?

BTW Knoppmyth folks: i wanna help to keep the good work!
Give me some directions and i will make it work.

REg /T

I did compile the Prism54 drivers recently on a fresh R4V5 install. From the top of my head the procedure is like this:

cd /usr/src
tar jxfv linux-2.4.25xxx
cd linux-2.4.25xxx
make clean
cp /boot/config-2.4.25xxx .config
make oldconfig
make dep
cd /usr/src
cp <path to prism54 src>/prism54-1.2xxxx.tar.bz .
tar jxfv prism54-1.2xxxx.tar.bz
cd prism54
make KDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.4.25xxx clean modules
make install

Replace xxx with exact version name of kernel. As you can see, I did not patch the kernel source. Just used the prism54 sources and told it where to find the kernel sources. For some reason the 1.1 stable version gave problems during compile. The 1.2 version compiled just fine.

Another thing I had to do was installing hotplug, grep (dependency), hotplug-utils, wireless-tools and libwl from the testing tree. This way the firmware upload facility of hotplug will be added. I also downloaded and installed the firmware offered on the prism54 website. The README in the prism54 sources tells you how to install the firmware and test the hotplug setup. The Debian packages of hotplug et al can be downloaded from http://packages.debian.org and installed using dpkg -i <package name>.

HTH

Good to hear that maybe there are some improvements in this matter.

I will test to compile the prism drivers again after an upgrade to R4V5. Grats man cause you got it working!
Last time i upgrade hotplug (cause in R4V4.1 the hotplug is not the required) through apt-get i got a lot of small problems with som usb/pci devices i use, too bad, but maybe in this new version even this part got more stable.
Thx again for the good news.

I was not planning for this upgrade instead i was waiting for R5, but maybe R4V5 this is worth a shot anyway.

Reg /T

My guess is that the procedure for R4V4.1 is exactly the same. I also got it working on an older R4Vsomething. The only thing with previous versions is that they came with a pre 2.4.23 kernel and Prism54 requires a 2.4.23 and up kernel. It can all be done. Depends on how much time you want to invest.

Prism54 also works with kernel 2.6. I tried that too but couldn't get lirc and ivtv working with that kernel. That was about half a year ago. Lately I have seen many people reporting they got their Myth system running with 2.6. I suppose that route is doable too now.

Another thing to check is the Prism54 forum. They have a forum just like this one (search included). In some cases subversions of hardware exist which do not work with the driver. It may be a good idea to make absolutely sure your hardware is supported before spending too much time on it.