2:28pm CDT
Lots of kernel hacking lately. NetBSD for my z50 wasn't
working so well, so I decided to take out the 32MB memory
module and try Linux on it again. Once I got the mipsel
kernel sources from Linux VR's CVS server and began work on
getting a kernel compiled. Since I had already gotten this
working in the past before, it went quite easily. After I
was up and running, I decided to try getting my new Lucent
WaveLAN Turbo 802.11 card working in it. This proved to be
more difficult than I thought. I took the wvlan_cs patch
for 2.3.50 and applied it to linux-mipsel-2.4.0test1(CVS
version). It applied fairly cleanly, however, it broke the
pcmcia_net.o build. I'm still pretty green as far as
getting around the Linux kernel and build system, so it took
a lot of reading the source(thank god for ctags) and
grepping to figure out what was going on. I did a lot of
whining to myself about not being able to find things on the
"bigger picture" of the kernel. "Use the Source, Luke",
seems to be the proper phrase for learning more about the
kernel. And learn I did, I understand a lot more about the
way modules(compiled into the kernel or external) and the
PCMCIA subsystem(which, thankfully, is documented well by
David Hinds). When you first look at the kernel, it's quite
a daunting piece of code, but once you dig under the
surface, and have the proper tools for finding your way
around it, it reveals it's secrets little by little. This
afternoon at lunch, I believe I put in the last fixes to the
Makefile that I needed to get the wvlan_cs driver going.
Now I just need to copy the kernel over to my Compact Flash
card and try booting it up on the laptop when I get home.
I've also been wondering if PCMCIA Card Services exposes
anything in /proc to see which ethernet cards have support
in the kernel. When the pcmcia_net.o build was breaking, I
was having problems not knowing if wvlan_cs was actually
being linked into the kernel or not. If there was some way
to see a listing of the cards that PCMCIA CS has drivers
for, from /proc, that'd be helpful. Of course, now I think
have it fixed and really wouldn't need that functionality,
but I still wonder if it exists or not.
Survivor comes down to the final four tonight, I
wonder who makes it.