The Official HWF Kernel Repo

Anti-Trend · 31-01-2008, 04:23 AM

Gutsy users with ATI or NVidia graphics: READ THIS

Since there's been a lot of confusion on the issue of Nvidia and ATI video drivers and our custom kernel, I thought some clarification was necessary. The ATI or NVidia drivers which are automatically installed from Gutsy's 'Restricted' repo will not work with our custom kernel. Since those drivers in the restricted repo are built specifically against Gutsy's default kernel, they won't work with any other kernel but that one. As a result, you'll need to build your video driver modules manually. This is a simple process which yields faster, more stable and more recent video drivers.

NOTE: Make sure to backup your xorg.conf! Ubuntu may break your xorg.conf, and it's always nice to have a point of reference.

If you have an ATI card:

Put the following in your /etc/environment file:

Code:

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

(If you have a Pentium-1 class CPU such as an AMD K6, substitute i586 for i686)

The "build-essential" metapackage is required for the installation process. If it's not installed:
Code:
```
sudo apt-get install build-essential
```
Be sure to remove any ATI software previously installed via your package manager.
Make sure the kernel header package for your custom kernel is installed in addition to the kernel image package.
Download and install the latest drivers from ATI. You can do this from within your normal desktop environment.

If you've got an NVidia card:

Put the following in your /etc/environment file:

Code:

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

(If you have a Pentium-1 class CPU such as an AMD K6, substitute i586 for i686)

Be sure to remove any NVidia software previously installed via your package manager.
Make sure the kernel header package for your custom kernel is installed in addition to the kernel image package.
Follow the directions here: Howto Install NVidia drivers In Debian or Ubuntu

You've just installed a custom kernel and CPU-optimized video drivers. If you get through it with no issues, congratulations! But if you still have issues after carefully following the above steps, please feel free to post a new thread.

sabashuali · 02-02-2008, 12:08 AM

Thanks AT and Sniper!
I have 'Debian Testing' running on my D600 laptop (Pentium M). Boot is with Lilo.
When I installed both (not together.... one at a time....) the P4 (thinking that the PM is a castrated, L2 cach enlarged, P4) or the generic image -
On boot I got the following message:
"This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU: 0: 6"

The boot goes no further.

Any ideas?

Anti-Trend · 02-02-2008, 12:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabashuali

Thanks AT and Sniper!
I have 'Debian Testing' running on my D600 laptop (Pentium M). Boot is with Lilo.
When I installed both (not together.... one at a time....) the P4 (thinking that the PM is a castrated, L2 cach enlarged, P4) or the generic image -
On boot I got the following message:
"This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU: 0: 6"

The boot goes no further.

Any ideas?

Hey Saba, thanks for bringing this up. The Pentium M is a beefed up P3, so in theory it should have worked with the generic kernel. The first thing I'd do is make dead sure you're not accidentally trying to boot one of the Gutsy kernels, and it's definitely the Lenny one. That said, I've recompiled the generic kernel with less aggressive CPU optimizations and I'll re-upload it shortly. If that still doesn't work for you, I'll go ahead and build a Pentium M specific kernel for you.

sabashuali · 02-02-2008, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anti-Trend

Hey Saba, thanks for bringing this up. The Pentium M is a beefed up P3, so in theory it should have worked with the generic kernel. The first thing I'd do is make dead sure you're not accidentally trying to boot one of the Gutsy kernels, and it's definitely the Lenny one. That said, I've recompiled the generic kernel with less aggressive CPU optimizations And I'll re-upload it shortly. If that still doesn't work for you, I'll go ahead and build a Pentium M specific kernel for you.

Hey AT. Many thanks for responding so quickly! And thanks for the clarification regarding the PM architecture....

I have but two entries in my Lilo screen (only accessible by pressing 'Esc' during boot) when I have one of your image installed - Linux and LinuxOLD.
I go with the LinuxOLD to boot properly. I am assuming the first entry is for the newly installed, but not booting, 2.6.23 image.

I will give it another look though.... will keep you updated. Have a good weekend!

Saba

Anti-Trend · 02-02-2008, 01:02 AM

When you finish booting to the working kernel, type

Code:

uname -a

to see which kernel you're running. If it's 2.6.23.14-something, it's the custom one.

sabashuali · 02-02-2008, 11:30 AM

Hey, the working Kernel is my 'old' one - 2.6.22-3-686
I have already un-installed the last 'attempt'...

Just need to get rid of the entry in Lilo.

Anti-Trend · 02-02-2008, 04:55 PM

All kernels have been updated to a newer build of the same version. I've added a few more optional optimizations to most kernels in order to help you make the most of your newer hardware. Also, lowered the minimum requirements of the generic kernel so it should even run on a Pentium MMX. Please report any issues here!

Best regards,
-AT

sabashuali · 03-02-2008, 01:28 AM

Sorry AT....

I am getting the same message at boot when installing the new Generic kernel....
I'll just stick to the kernel I have....

Thanks for taking the time to try and sort this out...

Anti-Trend · 03-02-2008, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabashuali

I am getting the same message at boot when installing the new Generic kernel....

Hey Saba, the Generic kernel even boots on a P1, so I have the feeling you may be booting to the P4 Kernel by mistake. LILO is somewhat poorly implemented in Debian, and doesn't clearly label which kernel you're booting to.

This is kinda out of scope for helping you load the kernel, but unless you're booting to a RAID or LVM, I'd recommend switching your bootloader to GRUB. It's much more straight-forward. I have to use LILO on my desktop since I'm booting to a RAID-1, and it can be a pain sometimes, in exactly the ways you've experienced.

sabashuali · 03-02-2008, 03:59 PM

Thanks AT.

I have decided to start again so there will be a re-install tonight!!!! I have messed up the bootloader good an proper....

The debian installer chooses lilo by default (as I am installing over XFS) so I will just have to backup at that stage and choose grub instead...

Can I switch now? While my installation is still going? mmmmm

Without having to re-install?

Anti-Trend · 04-02-2008, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabashuali

The debian installer chooses lilo by default (as I am installing over XFS) so I will just have to backup at that stage and choose grub instead...

Yeah, GRUB is incompatible with XFS as a boot partition. When you plan to use XFS for your root filesystem, it's wise to put the bootloader on a separate partition. For instance, create a 100mb /boot partition and format it as ext2 or ext3. Only kernels go in /boot, so it doesn't have to be very big.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabashuali

Can I switch now? While my installation is still going? mmmmm

Without having to re-install?

debian switch from lilo to grub - Google Search

...you can switch, but GRUB is still incompatible with XFS as the boot partition. If you made a 100mb slice, formatted as ext2/3 and put all your boot stuff on it, you could probably make the swap. It won't be super-straightforward, but it's possible.

sabashuali · 04-02-2008, 07:46 AM

Hi AT

Thanks again - I did not realize there was such a solution as described nor did I realize that GRUB was incompatible with XFS.... (or the other way around)

AAAAnyway, the problem with the Debian installer is that when it come to installing grub, it simply freezes. Now I understand why.

But! I ended up installing with Lilo and then, with the help of one or two tutorials, swapped to Grub. At the moment Grub is booting the system, reading the kernel from the xfs partition. The test will be when I add a new kernel.... will grub write the new entry properly? It remains to be seen.....

Unfortunately, the link to the repo is down

Will keep you informed.

Anti-Trend · 04-02-2008, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabashuali

But! I ended up installing with Lilo and then, with the help of one or two tutorials, swapped to Grub. At the moment Grub is booting the system, reading the kernel from the xfs partition. The test will be when I add a new kernel.... will grub write the new entry properly? It remains to be seen.....

Unfortunately, the link to the repo is down

Will keep you informed.

Glad to hear you've made progress. Man, you've come so far in learning Linux Saba, you've done me proud.

*tear*

As for the repo, Sniper IM'ed me about it a short while ago. Apparently some recent changes to the website overwrote our repo config in Apache. I re-added it, so you should be able to get to it without problems. Sorry for the inconvenience.

All the best,
-AT

sabashuali · 04-02-2008, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabashuali

The test will be when I add a new kernel.... will grub write the new entry properly? It remains to be seen.....

As I suspected trying to install a new Kernel envoked lilo once again and installed a fresh (wrong...

) bootloader...... After playing around for a while I thought to myself.... hang on - what's the point? Am I going to have to go through this everytime I update a Kernel? No! So I started again.....

Thsi time I going down the route as described in AT's reply (#27).
I now have three partitions - /boot (ext3); / (xfs) and /home (xfs)
This should make it easy to install grub and maintain a healthy connection between the bootloader and the Kernel.

Will it work? Am I doing it right?
We will find out in the next episode of 'Saba's Linux bash'....

See you then......

Thanks, AT for the kind words (It is all down to the teacher...

) and for all the help!

Update:
Well everything worked well.... apart from the Kernel. Same message as before and does not boot. This time, thanks to Grub, I know I am attempting to boot the generic kernel and nothing else. Let me make sure I am doing this correctly - I download both headers and image of the generic kernel. Then I install the headers first and then the image. Is this correct? Am I missing a stage? Is there anything I am not doing?

Anti-Trend · 13-02-2008, 01:51 AM

New builds today based on vanilla 2.6.24.2 from kernel.org. The naming convention has been modified somewhat to include 'hwf', so it's easier to tell our kernels from the stock ones. This build also includes a fix for a rather serious user privilege escalation vulnerability, so it's recommended that you upgrade as soon as possible.

31-01-2008, 04:23 AM	#16 (permalink) Top
Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek Join Date: Oct 2003 Age: 27 Male Posts: 4,813 Times Helpful: 524 Status: Offline My Computer	Gutsy users with ATI or NVidia graphics: READ THIS Since there's been a lot of confusion on the issue of Nvidia and ATI video drivers and our custom kernel, I thought some clarification was necessary. The ATI or NVidia drivers which are automatically installed from Gutsy's 'Restricted' repo will not work with our custom kernel. Since those drivers in the restricted repo are built specifically against Gutsy's default kernel, they won't work with any other kernel but that one. As a result, you'll need to build your video driver modules manually. This is a simple process which yields faster, more stable and more recent video drivers. NOTE: Make sure to backup your xorg.conf! Ubuntu may break your xorg.conf, and it's always nice to have a point of reference. If you have an ATI card: Put the following in your /etc/environment file: Code: CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" (If you have a Pentium-1 class CPU such as an AMD K6, substitute i586 for i686) The "build-essential" metapackage is required for the installation process. If it's not installed: Code: sudo apt-get install build-essential Be sure to remove any ATI software previously installed via your package manager. Make sure the kernel header package for your custom kernel is installed in addition to the kernel image package. Download and install the latest drivers from ATI. You can do this from within your normal desktop environment. If you've got an NVidia card: Put the following in your /etc/environment file: Code: CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" (If you have a Pentium-1 class CPU such as an AMD K6, substitute i586 for i686) Be sure to remove any NVidia software previously installed via your package manager. Make sure the kernel header package for your custom kernel is installed in addition to the kernel image package. Follow the directions here: Howto Install NVidia drivers In Debian or Ubuntu You've just installed a custom kernel and CPU-optimized video drivers. If you get through it with no issues, congratulations! But if you still have issues after carefully following the above steps, please feel free to post a new thread. __________________ See My Desktop \| Try Linux \| Install Linux \| Visit My Server \| Support Hardware Forums \| Easily rip DVDs in Linux

02-02-2008, 12:08 AM	#17 (permalink) Top
sabashuali Ani Ma'amin Join Date: May 2005 Age: 40 Male Posts: 1,421 Times Helpful: 68 My Mood: Breezy Status: Online My Computer	Thanks AT and Sniper! I have 'Debian Testing' running on my D600 laptop (Pentium M). Boot is with Lilo. When I installed both (not together.... one at a time....) the P4 (thinking that the PM is a castrated, L2 cach enlarged, P4) or the generic image - On boot I got the following message: "This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU: 0: 6" The boot goes no further. Any ideas? __________________ This is not a PC friendly user!!! I want to use Linux because it is better. Cost and packages are added bonuses! Help with digital video? Help My Mini City to grow Hit or Miss

02-02-2008, 01:02 AM	#20 (permalink) Top
Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek Join Date: Oct 2003 Age: 27 Male Posts: 4,813 Times Helpful: 524 Status: Offline My Computer	When you finish booting to the working kernel, type Code: uname -a to see which kernel you're running. If it's 2.6.23.14-something, it's the custom one. __________________ See My Desktop \| Try Linux \| Install Linux \| Visit My Server \| Support Hardware Forums \| Easily rip DVDs in Linux

02-02-2008, 11:30 AM	#21 (permalink) Top
sabashuali Ani Ma'amin Join Date: May 2005 Age: 40 Male Posts: 1,421 Times Helpful: 68 My Mood: Breezy Status: Online My Computer	Hey, the working Kernel is my 'old' one - 2.6.22-3-686 I have already un-installed the last 'attempt'... Just need to get rid of the entry in Lilo. __________________ This is not a PC friendly user!!! I want to use Linux because it is better. Cost and packages are added bonuses! Help with digital video? Help My Mini City to grow Hit or Miss

02-02-2008, 04:55 PM	#22 (permalink) Top
Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek Join Date: Oct 2003 Age: 27 Male Posts: 4,813 Times Helpful: 524 Status: Offline My Computer	All kernels have been updated to a newer build of the same version. I've added a few more optional optimizations to most kernels in order to help you make the most of your newer hardware. Also, lowered the minimum requirements of the generic kernel so it should even run on a Pentium MMX. Please report any issues here! Best regards, -AT __________________ See My Desktop \| Try Linux \| Install Linux \| Visit My Server \| Support Hardware Forums \| Easily rip DVDs in Linux

03-02-2008, 01:28 AM	#23 (permalink) Top
sabashuali Ani Ma'amin Join Date: May 2005 Age: 40 Male Posts: 1,421 Times Helpful: 68 My Mood: Breezy Status: Online My Computer	Sorry AT.... I am getting the same message at boot when installing the new Generic kernel.... I'll just stick to the kernel I have.... Thanks for taking the time to try and sort this out... __________________ This is not a PC friendly user!!! I want to use Linux because it is better. Cost and packages are added bonuses! Help with digital video? Help My Mini City to grow Hit or Miss

03-02-2008, 03:59 PM	#25 (permalink) Top
sabashuali Ani Ma'amin Join Date: May 2005 Age: 40 Male Posts: 1,421 Times Helpful: 68 My Mood: Breezy Status: Online My Computer	Thanks AT. I have decided to start again so there will be a re-install tonight!!!! I have messed up the bootloader good an proper.... The debian installer chooses lilo by default (as I am installing over XFS) so I will just have to backup at that stage and choose grub instead... Can I switch now? While my installation is still going? mmmmm Without having to re-install? __________________ This is not a PC friendly user!!! I want to use Linux because it is better. Cost and packages are added bonuses! Help with digital video? Help My Mini City to grow Hit or Miss

04-02-2008, 07:46 AM	#27 (permalink) Top
sabashuali Ani Ma'amin Join Date: May 2005 Age: 40 Male Posts: 1,421 Times Helpful: 68 My Mood: Breezy Status: Online My Computer	Hi AT Thanks again - I did not realize there was such a solution as described nor did I realize that GRUB was incompatible with XFS.... (or the other way around) AAAAnyway, the problem with the Debian installer is that when it come to installing grub, it simply freezes. Now I understand why. But! I ended up installing with Lilo and then, with the help of one or two tutorials, swapped to Grub. At the moment Grub is booting the system, reading the kernel from the xfs partition. The test will be when I add a new kernel.... will grub write the new entry properly? It remains to be seen..... Unfortunately, the link to the repo is down Will keep you informed. __________________ This is not a PC friendly user!!! I want to use Linux because it is better. Cost and packages are added bonuses! Help with digital video? Help My Mini City to grow Hit or Miss

13-02-2008, 01:51 AM	#30 (permalink) Top
Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek Join Date: Oct 2003 Age: 27 Male Posts: 4,813 Times Helpful: 524 Status: Offline My Computer	New builds today based on vanilla 2.6.24.2 from kernel.org. The naming convention has been modified somewhat to include 'hwf', so it's easier to tell our kernels from the stock ones. This build also includes a fix for a rather serious user privilege escalation vulnerability, so it's recommended that you upgrade as soon as possible. __________________ See My Desktop \| Try Linux \| Install Linux \| Visit My Server \| Support Hardware Forums \| Easily rip DVDs in Linux

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)