Re: Etch status..?
On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 08:21:25PM -0500, cga2000 wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 27, 2006 at 08:50:24PM EST, Douglas Tutty wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 27, 2006 at 05:13:56PM -0500, cga2000 wrote:
> > > On Sun, Nov 26, 2006 at 05:36:39PM EST, Douglas Tutty wrote:
>
> [..]
>
> I did the etch upgrade following the sarge install using apt-get and
> then installed half a dozen apps, Xorg, and the 2.6.8 and 2.6.17
> kernels using aptitude.
>
> Sounds like I'll have to start over and stick to one or the other.
No, just start using aptitude, stop using apt-get, and go manually
through the list of packages from within aptitude, determine if they're
ones you want, they depend on packages installed, or they're cruft.
>
> The result of mixing the two can only be "unpredictable" since whoever
> wrote those two different interfaces would never have bothered about
> the implications of this silly behavior.
>
> All the same .. and I may be wrong about this but my gut feeling is that
> this is not related to my problems with networking. After all most of
> the live CD's that I tried that run recent kernels also failed to
> configure the network.
Don't know. Get your system in a coherent state then you can see what's
what.
>
> > You should figure out the aptitude full-screen. It really is quite
> > easy. Tell aptitude (via the options menu) to automatically fix
> > dependancies but not install recommends.
>
> Is there a tutorial anywhere? And I mean _tutorial_ that shows you how
> to use it .. not one of those cryptic "manuals" ..
>
I don't know of a tutorial but there is an aptitude howto in
/usr/share/doc/aptitude
> [.. completely removing hotplug ]
>
> dpkg -P hotplug removed the init.d/hotplug* scripts.
>
> Both the 2.4.27 and 2.6.8 kernels still boot OK and configure eth0
> correctly.
>
> [.. validating contents of /etc/modules ]
>
> I have to look into the approach you recommend.
>
> > However, if you have 2.6.8 working, why worry about earlier kernels?
>
> Stuff like my pcmcia/scsi CD burner .. DRI .. 1400x1050 framebuffer
> console .. and possibly other stuff that work with the 2.4 kernel..
>
> So if any of these turns out to be a problem area with 2.6 kernels, I
> can boot the 2.4 kernel and run a backup .. play tuxracer .. etc.
>
At least you have 2.4 and 2.6 kernels booting. You can tackle each
piece of hardware that doesn't work one at a time.
>
> Here's basically what's happening with 2.6.17 at this point:
>
> 1. The kernel oops goes away if I remove the CD burner's PC card.
> 2. Everything re the pcmcia NIC looks good (lsmod, pccardctl ..)
> 3. Except that eth0 is not configured
> 4. Also pccardctl (status or ident..?) marks the slot as [unbound]
>
> So it sounds like there's a table with an entry for each pcmcia slot
> somewhere in the kernel and that for some reason it does not get
> populated.
>
> or at least that the entry for slot 0 where my NIC lives doesn't have
> the name of the driver.
I'm assuming that you have the pcmcia packages installed? They're in
addition to the regular kernel and I think (its been years since I had
pcmcia) one package is kernel-specific. If you're missing this for the
2.6 kernel it could explain a lot.
>
> My impression at this point is that I probably need to configure udev ..
> I read something about a udev resources database .. but I have no clue
> how to go about doing that and the docs I have found are cryptic and
> only (briefly) discuss the creation of this database when installing
> udev from source.
>
> I was thinking of installing a custom 2.6.17 or 2.6.18 from source over
> the weekend .. paying special attention to all pcmcia-related aspects.
>
> Could be that the vanilla 2.6 etch kernel does not support my
> particular pcmcia config.
>
> Another option .. now that I can at least boot this 2.6.17 kernel and
> retrieve logs and the output of lsmod .. lspcmcia .. pccardctl .. lspci
> .. etc. might be to post to the pcmcia mailing list .. see if anyone
> can figure out from my output what I need to do to get this to work.
>
> To be honest .. I am surprised that I couldn't find more in Google
> regarding pcmcia difficulties with recent kernels .. Maybe because PC
> cards NICs are a lot less popular these day and most recent laptops
> have a proper PCI network card .. ??
>
> Sorry about being so verbose -- most of the above is speculation -- and
> thank you for your comments.
When you're trying to track down multiple overlapping problems, verbose
beats terse any day.
Take it one problem at a time. I would suggest first sorting out
aptitude and your package dependencies; it makes updates easier if the
system is intact. Then pick one deficiency and work it through, then
another. Be careful of trying to fix more than one thing at once in
case they're inter-related.
Good luck.
Doug.
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