On 5/10/05, Alexander Toresson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 5/9/05, ABrady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Mon, 09 May 2005 12:44:25 -0700 > > Alexander Toresson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > My brother has an old computer, a Compaq Presario, which he is running > > > windows 98 on. He's not running any game on it, and win98 is really > > > unstable on it, so I've manage to persuade him to make me install > > > debian on it. However, just to check, I ran memtest86 on it, to check > > > the ram. Result: lots of errors between 14 and 17 mb. > > > Could linux be setup to not use this area of the ram? Getting new ram > > > for this computer may not be easy, it's a compaq, so it may need > > > special compaq ram... dunno if pc100/pc133 would do... > > > > > > Regards, Alexander Toresson > > > > Well, there's this: > > > > http://rick.vanrein.org/linux/badram/ > > > > The downside is, it looks like you'd have to have a running system to > > get it installed, and I don't know of any way to do that. > > > > The upside is, there is a potential alternative. You could create a live > > CD with the patch installed. > > > > You'd basically (off the top of my head--I've never tried this) need to > > install a sytem on a good machine, compile a kernel with the patch, > > create your own CD from that and distribute it. Then anyone using the CD > > would have access to the patch. > > > > The other downside is, if you've never created a live CD of your own, it > > can be a lot of work, at least the first time. > > > > There might already be such a live CD released, but I'm not aware of > > any. Here's a list of them, though, if you'd like to look through it to > > see if you can locate anything: > > > > http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php > > > > I actually found a mandrake live cd that seemed to have badram. > However, I want to use debian. The computer is currently quite stable, > however, programs crash occasionally. So I'll try compiling the custom > kernel as a package on another computer, then install a barebone > debian on the computer with bad ram and installing the kernel package > on it. > > Regards, Alexander Toresson >
I wanted to compile a kernel equivalent to the stock debian 2.6.8-2-686, but with badram and compiled for pentium 2/celeron. Therefore, I downloaded the kernel source from the apt repository, extracted it, patched it with the badram patch for 2.6.8.1 kernels, copied /boot/config-2.6.8-2-686 to /usr/src/kernel-source-2.6.8-2-686/.config, ran make oldconfig (which asked about badram, andI answered yes), I then ran make menuconfig, and changed so that it's going tobe compiled for pentium 2/celeron, and then I exited. I then ran: make-kpkg --append-to-version=badram --revision=lex.badram.1.0 kernel_package (I also use ccache) Then I installed the kernel-image package created in /usr/src. I have no idea how to create an initrd equal to the stock debian, so I used the stock debian. (added the appropriate commands to /boot/grub/menu.lst) When I then tried to boot the kernel, I got a lot of errors about "module not found", then a lot of errors about "/lib/modules/2.6.8badram/modules.dep not found", and then "Kernel panic: attempted to kill init". What am I doing wrong? Regards, Alexander Toresson
