Re: ethner card problem

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Ulrike" == Ulrike Schmidt <ulrike@example.com> writes:

    Ulrike> Is there an easier way? I sat here several hours answering
    Ulrike> questions about devices I have no idea what they are or
    Ulrike> what I have in this labtop,

Find your most recent .config that resulted in a kernel you like.  If
worst comes to worst, you should have stuff in /boot/config* from
Debian installs.  Copy that to /usr/src/linux/.config, and you're
basically there.

Now cd to the linux source directory and do `make-kpkg clean'; this
does a `make clean'[1] from the kernel makefile and gets rid of all
Debian cruft.  Next, do `make menuconfig' or `make xconfig'.  This
allows you to choose what you're going to configure, instead of
looking at millions of choices (which admittedly has gotten way out of
hand).  Alternatively, if you're really happy with that kernel, just
do "make oldconfig", which defaults all questions to the answer in the
existing .config, and asks if it's a new config option.  (So, eg, if
the newer kernel has a device driver for a card that didn't exist for
the old kernel, you'll be asked about that, but not about any existing
cards.)

If you feel like answering more questions, on a laptop you need (1)
the default storage devices (IDE disk & CD-ROM, floppy, etc) (2) file
system (again, defaults should be OK, you need ext2, iso9660 aka
isofs, fat, vfat, and msdos filesystems) (3) network drivers (accept
the defaults; you only need to mess with this if you're going to use
is as a firewall or so) (4) network device drivers (turn all of these
OFF because you're going to use PCMCIA).  You may want to add (5)
network file systems (NFS, Samba) and (6) NLS facilities (ie, display
fonts for non-ASCII; not Japanese, unfortunately -- I think these are
in file systems for some reason).  Oh, and you probably want (7)
sound.  For sound you need to know what chipset you're using, this is
complex but if it's already working in the kernel corresponding to the
.config you copied you're golden, "sono mama" should work.  All the
rest (ISDN, video4linux, etc) the defaults are OK, the worst that can
happen is wasted space.

Then (still in the top linux directory with the Makefile) do
`make-kpkg --revision=uli+0 kernel_image'.  This will do another `make
oldconfig', which should run to completion, followed by a kernel
build, a kernel modules build, and finally the .deb build.

Then (still in the top linux directory with the Makefile, NOT in the
../modules directory) do `make-kpkg modules_image'.  This will build
all the modules in subdirectories of ../modules.  In the case of
PCMCIA, you should not need to do ANY configuration.  This will result
in lots of PCMCIA modules you don't need, but should also give you the
one you do need.

Now install the debs and you should be done.

This whole process normally takes me about 20 minutes of my time, and
I usually go through the whole menuconfig.  If you just accept the
defaults from the old .config, you should be able to do this in two
minutes.  (I assume you can find something useful to do while the
kernel and modules are building, that time is not included.)

    Ulrike> take the network card to some Windows labtop, install the
    Ulrike> drivers and check in this way whether it is broken or
    Ulrike> not. I am fed up.

One or more of the cards sharing the mfrid is broken.

You get what you pay for, I'm afraid.  I buy 3Com, funny, I've never
had any of these problems (I also paid about 15 times what you did;
WTF, it's your taxes, not my salary :( and no, I can't give it back,
I've asked).

    Ulrike> At the last kernel recompile I did things were configured
    Ulrike> already, I just had to add a module. This is a
    Ulrike> nightmare!!!

You can always use old configs simply by copying them to .config in
the top linux directory.  The configure scripts are smart enough to
ignore (and delete) stuff it doesn't understand or is irrelevant.
(Except for `make config', which assumes you want to do it all
yourself.)

If this config is already good for a (mostly) working kernel, then you
only have to focus on new devices (eg, your ethernet card) and broken
subsystems (eg, if sound doesn't work, you want to try reconfiguring
that).  But if it's not broke, don't touch it.


Footnotes: 
[1]  Actually, it does a `make mrproper', except that it preserves the
config files.

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