On Sat, 12 Sep 1998, Remo Badii wrote: > 1) While selecting/installing isdnutils, I was prompted to enter the > name of whatever (I did not know what that was) and the message > ended with (ippp0 ippp1 ippp2 ...): > I typed ippp0. Afterwards, I got the message that > /etc/isdn/ipppd.ippp0 is not yet configured. I thought this was all > right since I haven't bought an ISDN card yet and some configuration > must be done by hand (as for gpm, I think), by editing a file. > However, at reboot I also see a new message saying > INIT: /etc/inittab[74]: id field too long (max 4 characters). > Is this a problem with that name ipppd.ippp0 or something else?
For now, you can leave that out - if you won't be using it for a while then don't compile it in. It only takes 15 minutes on a slow machine, so doing it again later won't hurt. The manual for your ISDN card will instruct you on what values to give in the config. > 2) I'll have to choose kernel compilation options: I am working on an > IBM Thinkpad which will be connected to the rest of the world only > via an ethernet PCMCIA card and an ISDN card, no printer. Do I need > ppa (i.e., something I think is related with the parallel port)? > The boot message about ppa currently says: SPP present, EPP not > supported, probing 03bc, 0378, 0278 ... PPA is the parallel port scsi adapter - specifically for support of the Iomega parallel port Zip drive - you don't need it. The parallel port support is 'lp' (descended from 'line printer' I beleive). > 3) Presently, I also get the message: > RAMDISK driver: 16 ramdisks of 4096k size. > I do not know what a ramdisk is (although I can imagine it): do > I need any of them, is that a compilation option? > I have a 2.1 GB HD, 40 MB ram (probably 64 in the future), and a 40MB > Swap partition (just in case this is relevant to the ramdisk choice). RAM disks are only useful in certain situations - you probably won't need them. A RAM disk is a portion of your RAM that the kernel presents to you as a hard disk - you can read & write files. Its advantage is speed. Its disadvantage is that you've gotta give up some RAM. > 4) At boot time, I also get the message > Unable to load NLS charset cp437 (nls_cp437): again, I do not know > what that is, but the file is on the disk, together with several > other ones with analogous names. Being out of the Linux world for a while, I can only guess - I think that is for the internationalization stuff? I compiled my kernel and in the filesystems section you are asked about internationalization support, and in the help for that section it mentions that you only really need 2 of the codepages (for North America and Europe I think?). I chose those 2 that were suggested and got no errors. > 5) Finally, kernel-package allegedly makes things easy. If I understand > correctly, I am supposed to rename the directory /etc/modules/2.0.34 > to something else since that gets overwritten. Is all the rest > automatic? Where does the new image "go", so that I can correctly > point to it in the new lilo.conf? A sample lilo.conf with the call > to the original kernel and to a custom-made one would be helpful. > I do not see any "fakeroot" on the disk: is the command in the > documentation correct? It ends in kernel-image: do I have to type > "kernel-image" or a fantasy name for the image to be created? > THis is not clear from the README file. After you do the kernel configuration, it is suggested you do 'make dep; make clean' to correctly set up dependencies, and clean up old object files so they don't get included. Then I usually use 'make zImage' to make the kernel. At that point I get a cup of coffee and read the paper (Pentium 75 - ~17 minutes). Afterwards, I look at my screen to make sure that it finished ok, then do 'mv /lib/modules/2.0.34 /lib/modules/orig.2.0.34'. Then 'make modules; make modules_install' does pretty well what it claims to do. At this point you are finished, so now you take it for a test drive. The kernel is in /src/linux/arch/i386/boot (correct me if wrong), and called zImage. I usually test it on a floppy first - take a blank and go 'cat zImage > /dev/fd0'. Then leave the floppy in and reboot. Watch the startup. and see how it goes. If it looks ok, then you want to install the new kernel. Look at /etc/lilo.conf to see where it takes your kernel from (if you use LILO that is - you most probably do). Either back up the old one and put the new one in its place, or make /etc/lilo.conf point to where you want the new one to be. After that, run lilo and *poof* we are done. Steve Tremblett QNX Technical Support
