>>>>> Tony Robinson writes:
Tony> Can someone help me to install Debian on a portable (PCMCIA, Tony> no CDROM)? Is there a "how to install with PCMCIA mini-FAQ" Tony> that I missed? Tony> I've got as far as working out that the default kernel is Tony> compiled with PCMCIA support, that there exists a Tony> pcmcia-cs*.deb package, but the boot time network configure Tony> fails as there is no PCMCIA module loaded, nor does it seem Tony> to come with base. I could install base, copy over the Tony> pcmcia-cs*.deb package on floppy and I assume use dkpg to Tony> install it - only the man page for dkpg says use dselect and Tony> dselect want to install the lot. Any pointers, I can't be Tony> alone with this problem? When I updated the PCMCIA package to conform to the new source packaging format, I changed (and hopefully improved) its structure. Currently, the following pcmcia packages are available in the unstable tree (i.e., in the unstable/binary-i386/admin/ directory on distribution sites): pcmcia-cs_2.8.21-2_i386.deb contains everything but the kernel modules pcmcia-modules-2.0.6_2.8.21-2_i386.deb contains the kernel modules compiled for kernel version 2.0.6 pcmcia-source_2.8.21-2_i386.deb contains the sources so that you can compile your own modules Version 2.8.22-1 of the PCMCIA package is on the way; it is in the Incoming directory and ready to be processed. To get a computer with PCMCIA up and running, first ensure that its kernel is version 2.0.6. If it is not, get the kernel-image-2.0.6_2.0.6-0.deb file (available in the unstable/binary-i386/base/ directory) and install it with dpkg: $ dpkg -i kernel-image-2.0.6_2.0.6-0.deb Next, get the pcmcia-cs_2.8.21-2_i386.deb and pcmcia-modules-2.0.6_2.8.21-2_i386.deb files (available in the unstable/binary-i386/admin/ directory) and install them with dpkg: $ dpkg -i pcmcia-cs_2.8.21-2_i386.deb \ pcmcia-modules-2.0.6_2.8.21-2_i386.deb Depending on which PCMCIA cards will be used and what type of PCMCIA controller the computer has, it might be necessary to edit either the /etc/pcmcia.conf file or the files in the /etc/pcmcia/ directory. See the PCMCIA-HOWTO, which can be found in the /usr/doc/HOWTO directory of most Debian systems. Note that the pcmcia-modules-2.0.6 package depends on the pcmcia-cs package, so either pcmcia-cs should be installed first or both packages should be installed at the same time. If you don't use the default Debian kernel (I'm currently running version 2.0.19 of the kernel), you can still use the pcmcia-cs package, but you will need to generate your own pcmcia-modules-<kernel version> package. Here is the procedure: 1) Get either the pcmcia-source package (from unstable/binary-i386/admin/) or the source for the pcmcia-cs package which consists of three files (which can be found in unstable/source/admin/): pcmcia-cs_2.8.21-2.dsc pcmcia-cs_2.8.21-2.diff pcmcia-cs_2.8.21.orig.tar.gz Installing the pcmcia-source package (with `dpkg -i pcmcia-source_2.8.21-2_i386.deb'), places the source in the /usr/src/modules/pcmcia-cs/ directory of your system. The three source files can be unpacked using the dpkg-source script available in the latest version of the dpkg-dev package. For example, $ dpkg-source -x pcmcia-cs_2.8.21-2.dsc will unpack the source into the pcmcia-cs-2.8.21 subdirectory. See the man page for dpkg-source for more information on how the new source format works. 2) Place the kernel source in the /usr/src/linux directory. The kernel source should be fully configured; for example, do a `make config' and a `make dep'. 3) In the source directory (either /usr/src/modules/pcmcia-cs/ or pcmcia-cs-2.8.21/), type $ debian/rules clean binary-modules If the kernel source is located in a directory other than /usr/src/linux, you can type $ debian/rules KSRC=<kernel source directory> clean binary-modules where <kernel source directory> is the location of the kernel's source. This will create the pcmcia-modules-<kernel version> package's deb file in the parent directory. For example, suppose that version 2.0.7 of the kernel's source is located in the /usr/src/kernel-2.0.7 directory and that I have downloaded pcmcia-cs_2.8.21-2_i386.deb and pcmcia-source_2.8.21-2_i386.deb into the current directory. Here is how I would install the PCMCIA utilities for my custom compiled kernel: $ dpkg -i pcmcia-cs_2.8.21-2_i386.deb pcmcia-source_2.8.21-2_i386.deb $ cd /usr/src/kernel-2.0.7 $ make config dep [ Answer questions about the kernel's configuration ] $ cd /usr/src/modules/pcmcia-cs $ debian/rules KSRC=/usr/src/kernel-2.0.7 clean binary-modules $ cd .. $ dpkg -i pcmcia-modules-2.0.7_2.8.21-2_i386.deb If anything is unclear, send me a message. -- Brian Mays