Hello. At the outset I would like to tell you that I am a novice in Linux and don't know much. I have always treated Linux as an experimental OS to fool around with, because it is not very user friendly and the main problem of MS software is that they are very expensive. But here in Bombay, India that problem gets solved due to blatant software piracy which helps users like me use the amazingly high priced software at down to earth prices. Anyway before I started fooling around with Redhat Linux 8.0, I had no idea what "making" meant and how it had to be done. I am not a programmer!!. I installed Redhat Linux 8.0 from the CDs and it got stuck at the installation screen itself. I have the following hardware :- Compaq Presario 7000A4 PIII 933 MHz 256 MB RAM Riva TNT II with 32 MB RAM Hda with 30 GB Win2k ntfs Hdb with 10 GB > Hdb1 Linux main > hdb5 Linux swap > hdb6 msdos USB keyboard Compaq internet keyboard PS/2 mouse and some Firewire hardware for Digital camera (I think). DVD drive and internal modem (Conexant HCF)
The Installation failed to get my USB keyboard and it kept waiting for an input. No failsafe mechanisms !! Luckily I had an old simple keyboard which came in handy, and helped us install the damn software. Then after booting it again I realised it recognised my USB keyboard down to the vendor etc but could not use it for some stupid reason.It gave the following error about a zillion times during kernel startup >> usb_control/bulk_msg: timeout Also it recognised my modem but again could not find it by software detect from pppd. So I went about searching the net high and low to get a solution, but to no avail. Thanks to Mr.Michael Fischer ,Professor of Computer Science @Yale who had a similar problem with his HP USB keyboard and as per his suggestion, I got the new kernel source for 2.4.19 (bloody 30MB download over a dialup) and then also the patch file to 2.4.20-pre10. It worked!!!
<< I had to learn how to patch the kernel source, and also how to make the damn kernel itself. Painful experience I must say..>>
To the new kernel, I added NTFS support. (Redhat has something against NTFS support, it doesn't compile it into the kernel by default). And reduced the size by removing unnecessary hardware support from 1.1 MB to 780 KB. WoW !! I worked out a way in which USB keyboard was used in HID Boot Protocol method. Simply edit your /etc/modules.conf to read alias usb-controller usbkbd ........instead of alias usb-controller usb-uhci. This loaded the usbkbd.o file (u have to "make" it through the .config file inside the kernel making factory by activating CONFIG_USB_KBD=m). It worked perfectly and doesn't give any more errors regarding timeouts..
I then went on to download the hcfpcimodem-0.98mbsibeta02090200-1.i386.rpm binary RPM for my Conexant HCF internal modem from mbsi.com. Thanks Mark Boucher for the great software !! After installation it asks you to run a script called hcfpciconfig which not only configures your modem but also figures out if you are using a kernel which it will have to compile a modem driver for !! Great.. And it did just that for my kernel 2.4.20-pre10custom version. And automatically configured it too..
So now I have the keyboard, NTFS support and modem working perfectly. Long way for Redhat to go before they can compare to the likes of Apple and Microsoft. I wonder why anybody would even remotely think of comparing Linux at this stage to MS products or even MacOS?? I'd say it would take another 5-7 years before they can catch up to what other OSes are today.
Thanks everybody for all the amazing help provided online today and in the past which helps novices like me to get our systems working.. thanks a lot.. Hope this file will get other people like me out of their misery. Bye. Dr. Atul Garg. atulrg <at> rediffmail.com
PS:- More about making a kernel. You need to have the kernel source installed. It goes to the folder /usr/src/linux-2.4.19 etc. If you want to patch >> download patch and extract it to /usr/src folder. Use patch -p0 < patch file name. Then use the graphical utility "make xconfig" is the command, or simply go to control center > system tools > kernel config. Alter the source path to whatever your version of kernel is. If you want to use the old .config file for safety sake, pull it out of the default kernel source (e.g.: Redhat 8.0 CD has kernel 2.4.18-14. /usr/src/linux-2.4.18-14/.config is the file) or you may find it at /boot/config-2.4.18-14. Always save the original file to some safe place because you always tend to "make" mistakes(pun intended here). Alter the file, for your system and add whatever you want, delete hardware support etc. Now use the following commands to MAKE the kernel in the directory /usr/src/linux-urversion:- make symlinks dep >> computes dependencies. make clean >> Housekeeping operation make bzImage >> makes the kernel make modules >> Module factory at work make modules_install >> relocating modules to work perfectly make install >> relocating your kernel files to work..
PLEASE READ THE REDHAT LINUX DOCUMENTATION THAT COMES ALONG WITH THE INSTALLATION CDs BEFORE YOU DO ALL THIS. File to read file:///mnt/cdrom/RH-DOCS/rhl-cg-en-8.0/s1-custom-kernel.html or so.
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