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Hello, I am a relative n00b to Linux (4 weeks steady, but been tinkering
with various distros for 2 years). I am having some trouble that I can't
seem to find a reasonable solution to, and I have decided that compiling
a kernel is probably in order.

The problem BTW... I had sound in everything using my i810 onboard AC97
chipset on hte OSS driver. But, it would cause a LOT of crashes in Quake
3 as soon as I spawned on a level. ALSA didn't care much for the chip. So
I picked up a C-Media8738 based PCI card, which sndconfig says isn't
supported. So I set it up in ALSA and have sound in *everything* except
Quake 3 and Enemy Territory. But I can't set the card up in OSS, even
though Mandrake sees the card just fine, so I'm stuck with ALSA and the
easiest solution I've found thus far is to just recompile my kernel.

I've been through "make xconfig", "make dep", "make clean". I am now at
"Read the following file (to gain some knowledge about kernel
building...)
"less /usr/src/linux-2.4.21-0.13mdk/arch/i386/config.in"
and I have become a bit confused!

Now, the instructions do not say to edit this file, so I assume this is
just a summary of my kernel modules at this point?

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:47:47 +0000, Jay "Boogieman" Edwards <boogie350@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hello, I am a relative n00b to Linux (4 weeks steady, but been tinkering
> with various distros for 2 years). I am having some trouble that I can't
> seem to find a reasonable solution to, and I have decided that compiling
> a kernel is probably in order.
>
> The problem BTW... I had sound in everything using my i810 onboard AC97
> chipset on hte OSS driver. But, it would cause a LOT of crashes in Quake
> 3 as soon as I spawned on a level. ALSA didn't care much for the chip. So
> I picked up a C-Media8738 based PCI card, which sndconfig says isn't
> supported. So I set it up in ALSA and have sound in *everything* except
> Quake 3 and Enemy Territory. But I can't set the card up in OSS, even
> though Mandrake sees the card just fine, so I'm stuck with ALSA and the
> easiest solution I've found thus far is to just recompile my kernel.
>
> I've been through "make xconfig", "make dep", "make clean". I am now at
> "Read the following file (to gain some knowledge about kernel
> building...)
> "less /usr/src/linux-2.4.21-0.13mdk/arch/i386/config.in"
> and I have become a bit confused!
>
> Now, the instructions do not say to edit this file, so I assume this is
> just a summary of my kernel modules at this point?
>
>

The best way to add or subtract some feature from the kernel is to
open your old .config (usually found as /boot/config-2....) and
open it in a text editor.

Delete any lines that list features you want to change.

Then put the edited file in your kernel sources directory as the ONLY
..config file.

Run make oldconfig and you will only be offered choices (except for new
features that weren't available in the old sources) where you have deleted
the line that said do this, or this wasn't included.

Then carry on as instructed in the README in the kernel sources.

--
Alan C
Chronic Netiquette violators killfiled for 30 days. That includes PGP sigs.

Alan Connor wrote:

> The best way to add or subtract some feature from the kernel is to
> open your old .config (usually found as /boot/config-2....) and
> open it in a text editor.

I don't agree.
This may be good advice for an expert.
But otherwise it is much simpler to "make xconfig" or "make menuconfig".
Then load an old config file if you have one,
as a starting point,
and look carefully at the Sound options, or whatever.

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Jay "Boogieman" Edwards wrote:

> I've been through "make xconfig", "make dep", "make clean". I am now at
> "Read the following file (to gain some knowledge about kernel
> building..

out of the box, the config file should support the kernel
used (well, if you chose a default kernel). 'make xconfig'
will search for a config file in well-known locations.
something that i always do before creating a new custom
kernel is to first run a default build. my sequence of make
options runs as yours, except that i preceed the steps with
a 'make mrproper && make oldconfig'. basically, i execute
make as in the following:

[bash]# make mrproper && make oldconfig
[bash]# make menuconfig (or xconfig or config - your choice)
[bash]# make dep && make bzImage modules modules_install
[bash]# make install

to build what i'm calling a default kernel is to ensure that
i have a good, working kernel built with my toolset. so, at
the 'make menuconfig' stage, i do nothing - when menuconfig
comes up on the screen, i immediately 'exit' out, saving the
current config, then move on to build the kernel/modules and
install them (as an selectable choice at boot time). i verify
that everything runs appropriately. if so, i then go back in
to menuconfig and change any options i need/want, build this
new kernel and install it as another selectable choice.

whether you use 'xconfig' or 'menuconfig' or 'config', the
settings must come from SOMEWHERE, which means that the make
will search for a 'config' file in well-known locations. to
start from scratch, you would execute:

[bash]# make mrproper && make oldconfig

you may have to answer a question or two (when make oldconfig
runs). this should give you a clean start.
..
--
/// Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, skydiver, \\\
\\\ and author: "Inside Linux", "C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" ///
The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's: "My brain is paged out to my liver"

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 11:45:00 +0100, Timothy Murphy <tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> wrote:
>
>
> Alan Connor wrote:
>
>> The best way to add or subtract some feature from the kernel is to
>> open your old .config (usually found as /boot/config-2....) and
>> open it in a text editor.
>
> I don't agree.
> This may be good advice for an expert.
> But otherwise it is much simpler to "make xconfig" or "make menuconfig".
> Then load an old config file if you have one,
> as a starting point,
> and look carefully at the Sound options, or whatever.
>


On the contrary, this is a very simple approach, perfect for beginners.
It may be you are misunderstanding me.

Say you want to include support for IP_PNP, which, as you can see below
in my /boot/config-2.4.19 file was not selected when the kernel was
compiled.

#
# Networking options
#
CONFIG_PACKET=m
# CONFIG_PACKET_MMAP is not set
CONFIG_NETLINK_DEV=m
CONFIG_NETFILTER=y
CONFIG_NETFILTER_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_FILTER=y
CONFIG_UNIX=m
CONFIG_INET=y
CONFIG_IP_MULTICAST=y
# CONFIG_IP_ADVANCED_ROUTER is not set
# CONFIG_IP_PNP is not set
CONFIG_NET_IPIP=m
CONFIG_NET_IPGRE=m
# CONFIG_NET_IPGRE_BROADCAST is not set
# CONFIG_IP_MROUTE is not set
# CONFIG_INET_ECN is not set
CONFIG_SYN_COOKIES=y

All you do is delete the line

# CONFIG_IP_PNP is not set

and run make oldconfig

The new kernel will be compiled with stunning speed, with just a pause
where make asks you whether you want to include IP_PNP support. You then
choose whether to compile it as a module or to have it integrated in the
kernel, and the compilation zooms onwards to conclusion.

All the necessary information is in kernel_sources/Documentation, particularly
Configure.help.

Now just proceed with the directions in the kernel_sources/README and you are
done, with minimal chances of screwing anything up.

--
Alan C
Post validation at http://tinyurl.com/rv0y

"Alan Connor" <zzzzzz@xxx.yyy> wrote in message
news:_YDlb.1220$I04.330@newsread4.news.pas.earthli nk.net...
> On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 11:45:00 +0100, Timothy Murphy
<tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> wrote:


> All you do is delete the line
>
> # CONFIG_IP_PNP is not set
>
> and run make oldconfig
>
> The new kernel will be compiled with stunning speed, with just a pause
> where make asks you whether you want to include IP_PNP support. You then
> choose whether to compile it as a module or to have it integrated in the
> kernel, and the compilation zooms onwards to conclusion.

Unfortunately, in many cases, other options are enabled or disabled that you
may not have been aware of. Turning off "experimental" features, for
example, may disable dozens of other capabilities you may not have realized
you need. And does turning off SCSI disable the ide-scsi driver you need for
writable CD drives? It takes some poking around and testing to find this
out, and the menuconfig and xconfig tools come with some very nice "help"
options for examining specific features.

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 23:49:23 -0400, Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> "Alan Connor" <zzzzzz@xxx.yyy> wrote in message
> news:_YDlb.1220$I04.330@newsread4.news.pas.earthli nk.net...
>> On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 11:45:00 +0100, Timothy Murphy
><tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> wrote:
>
>
>> All you do is delete the line
>>
>> # CONFIG_IP_PNP is not set
>>
>> and run make oldconfig
>>
>> The new kernel will be compiled with stunning speed, with just a pause
>> where make asks you whether you want to include IP_PNP support. You then
>> choose whether to compile it as a module or to have it integrated in the
>> kernel, and the compilation zooms onwards to conclusion.
>
> Unfortunately, in many cases, other options are enabled or disabled that you
> may not have been aware of. Turning off "experimental" features, for
> example, may disable dozens of other capabilities you may not have realized
> you need.

I did not tell him to randomly remove features he didn't know anything about.

And I don't think he's stupid enough to do that.

And you also snipped the part of my post where I refer him to the specific
document in the kernel source package that covers those very issues.

> And does turning off SCSI disable the ide-scsi driver you need for
> writable CD drives? It takes some poking around and testing to find this
> out,

No. It takes reading the docs I referred him to.

> and the menuconfig and xconfig tools come with some very nice "help"
> options for examining specific features.

So what? So does make config and make oldconfig. You type ?

And if you have any sense at all, you have Config.help open in a pager
with search tools in another window.

>
>

Yes. And that's all covered in kernel_sources/Documentation/Configure.help.

Which I referred him to.

--
Alan C
Post validation at http://tinyurl.com/rv0y