Re: Testing 2.4.x or 2.6.x kernels on Amiga
Hi,
please find my answer in the text below.
On 27.08.2004, you wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 09:04:23PM -0500, Peter Krummrich wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> seeing all your discussing new kernels, I was wondering about the easiest
>> way to switch between kernels. I am still using 2.2.20 from Woody, but
>> would be interested in testing 2.4.x or even 2.6.x kernels on my Amiga.
>> How can I get (load .deb archive?), unpack (use dselect or dpkg?) and
>> install a new kernel with the option to easily switch back to my old
>> kernel in case the new one does not work?
>>
>> I am mostly interested in a new frame buffer device driver. The clgenfb
>> that comes with Woody (1.4?) seems to have some serious problems.
>
> Can you be more specific here? Kernel 2.2.25 is the latest in that
> series for the Amiga. I seem to recall that earlier versions had
> debugging turned on, so that whenever you switched consoles, you got a
> bunch of debugging output to one of them. Other then that, I used the
> 2.2.25 for some time before moving up to 2.4.27 which I compiled from
> source for myself.
>
> Note that there are advantages to compiling your own kernel. Saving RAM
> is one of them. The Debian stock kernels have many configuration
> options turned on to support a wide range of hardware that you probably
> do not have. Re-building the kernel with these options turned off can
> save significant RAM. This is especially important if you only have 12
> or 16 meg to begin with.
>
> --Lance
>
>
The kernel I am currently using is 2.2.20 with clgen v1.4 ?, which comes
from the CDROM distribution of Woody R2.
I also had problems with earlier versions of clgen with debugging turned on
(was it 1.3 that came with the 2.2.10 kernel?). To get around this, I
changed the code in clgenfb.c and rebuilt the kernel.
The clgen version I am using now is 1.4 ? (obviously someone was not sure
which version comes next and added a question mark). At first glance, the
driver seems to work with my Picasso II graphics board (A2000 with Blizzard
2060 - 68060 with 50 MHz). The console display in low resolution
(640x480-60) is o.k. until the scrolling starts. In some cases, scrolling
messes up some lines with some random changing of pixels.
The problem becomes much worse when switching to higher resolutions. I used
fbset to change to 1024x768-70. The lines are displayed o.k. until
scrolling starts, which completely destroys the lines. Lines that are
scrolled end up in a random distribution of pixels.
By the way - transfer of arguments from amiboot to clgen does not seem to
work. The kernel gets the monitorcap and mode:high
arguments (tested by cat /proc/cmdline), but clgen still starts with
640x480-60.
Somewhere I read that 2.4 kernels may come with a different version of
clgen. So I wanted to test some newer kernels that may come with a better
clgen - without spending the effort to rebuild the kernel. I would like to
try some kernel images first to make sure the frame buffer works. When I
find a good one, I may spend the effort to rebuild it from source.
Peter
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