Topic: Ad VT8235 Southbridge support

[Mike]

I have just bought a Elitegroup K7VMM+ mainboard a couple of weeks ago specially for my SME 5.6. It has a VT8235 Southbridge chipset.
This chipset is appearently not supported by the 2.4.18 Kernel of the SME 5.6.
Found this here:
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=17355.msg67560#msg67560
I did some researche on it and quickly found this link:
http://lwn.net/Articles/8035/
Thanks to Vojtech Pavlik because he provides a script that suports the VT8235 Southbridge chipset.
I also found a way to patch the kernel quickly.
So far so good.

From here on it became problematic.
SME 5.6 does not seem to work like other Linux distributions an I am surely no Linux Wiz. For Someone who knows Linux it maybe done in a few minutes I guess. Can someone tel me how to patch the kernel with the VT8235 Southbridge chipset-support script.

Hope someone can help to get this chipset supported.
Almost there but my knowledge of Linux is not enough to finish this last step.

Thanks, Mike

[Nathan Fowler]

Search Google for Kernel-Howto's/Kernel-Compile how-tos, these will teach you how to recompile and patch your kernel.  You'll need asm-tools, gcc/egcs, egcs/gcc-devel, make, automake, and the kernel sources.  It's worth the headache to be able to learn how to do it on your own...

Also, Google kernel patches as well, so you can learn how to apply patches.

Hope this helped,
Nathan

[Mike]

Thanks Nathan

It´s not that I did not want to search for it myself.
I alraedy found how to patch the Kernel but like I said, on SME the standard way to patch the kernel does not work because the right tools are appearently not available and you get that dir´s and files are not found because they are just not there.
I just needed a clue what I would need.
The line; "You'll need asm-tools, gcc/egcs, egcs/gcc-devel, make, automake, and the kernel sources." was what I was really looking for.

Thanks again Nathan

[Nathan Fowler]

No problem, I hope you didnt' think I was out to "flame" you, that wasn't my intent.  I understand you put for a strong effort to find the answer your self, and I think you'd benefit more if you could find the answer by the sweat of your brow versus being spoon fed.  Honestly, the only thing you lack to completion is the compiler tools, and when compared, is actually the least of all steppings stone to the solution you've already reached.  You've actually surpassed most.  Check the FAQ, if it's updated I think it has RPMS you need, if it's out of date let me know and I'll be more than happy to point you in the right direction and will help to overcome any hurdles you may face.

Thanks,
Nathan

[Mike]

No, don´t worry, I did not think you were trying to "flame" me.

>Honestly, the only thing you lack to completion is the compiler tools, and when compared, is actually the least of all steppings stone to the solution you've already reached.

O.K., I think I found all the compiler tools I need and installed them.
I think the FAQ wasn´t complete but I Linux tells you what else it needs to be able to install the rpm´s in the FAQ.
I installed a clean system just so it is not a problem if I mess up the system (which I alreday did ones).
I know by now the file /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-5 is the file to patch and I have got the feeling I read the hole internet but I guess that´s just the problem.
Now I´m confused.
I found all kinds of ways to apply a kernel patch and tried them all.
With the patches I tried I always get that the al the Hunks have failed.
The full kernel rpm´s from Redhat just seem to unpack and do nothing more.
Must have to doing something more but I have not found that yet.
The kernel packages from redhat end with .src.rpm
All other (not kernel) rpm´s end with noarch.rpm
What is the difference and does this mean I have to compile it to a package noarch package?
Man, 2 days and it always feels like I´m almost there but still I´m not quite there yet.
Have any hints to at least point me in the right direction.
I got the feeling that now I am "flamed" by Linux itself.

[Mike]

O.K a few direct questions:
-Can I just install redhat kernel 2.4.20-18.8 or has Mitel changed things so a standard kernel will not work?
-Is patching kernel 2.4.18-5 with patch 2.4.20-18.8 o.k. or is it not possible to jump over the other patches in between?
-I found this:
        rpm -ivh kernel-2.x.y-YYYYMMDD.armv4l.rpm
        rpm -ivh kernel-headers-2.x.y-YYYYMMDD.armv4l.rpm
    but @ Redhat I can not find a kernel-headers rpm.
    Isn´t there a standard in Linux or do I just don´t see it §"!$$%##%&%....

-What is the right way to install a hole new kernel?
 because they all talk about patching
 Installing a new one can´t be more difficult....

[Charlie Brady]

Mike wrote:

> -Can I just install redhat kernel 2.4.20-18.8 or has Mitel
> changed things so a standard kernel will not work?

You can install a RedHat kernel. Mitel has not touched the kernel at all.

The PPTP functionality, however, depends on a matching ppp-mppe-modules RPM, so if you need PPTP, then you'll need to find or build a suitable RPM. That should be a lot less work than building the whole kernel.

Charlie

[Kelvin]

Hi Mike,

I've also had a go at patching the kernel for the newer VIA southbridge support. However, I did not use the patch file from LWN as, like you, I found that the patch failed at every hunk. I used the patch from VIA themselves. It only fails at 2 places (out of quite a few) and I manually examined and patched the required lines of the corresponding source files. The VIA patch was meant for the oiriginal RH 7.3 kernel source and not the updated kernel used by SME 5.6.

Unfortunately, I still cannot recompile the kernel using the DevTools packages from contribs.org as the compile process generates errors about invalid / missing paths, files, etc. I've used the DevTools packages to compile other things like drivers, etc. before without a hitch as they did not involve the affected kernel headers or source files. As I did not want to mess with the kernel sources too much in case I really broke something, I gave up on it (it was also getting tedious - more urgent things to do). However, if someone with more time and experience managed to get the new kernel going, it would be much appreciated as I have had first hand experience of things going badly wrong if you proceed to use SME 5.6 on the motherboards with these chipsets (poor performance, data corruption, IDE tape drive that won't work reliably, etc). I actually have one such m/b in a production environment but it is using an add-in controller to drive the hdds and other bits therefore the southbridge problem did not directly affect this particular system.

Kelvin

[Mike]

O.K., after 3 days I give up.
I have even downloaded Redhat 7.3 and fully installed it on another Athlon system hoping to have the right tools then to patch the kernel.
Dead end there too.
I never saw the "make xconfig" or "make menuconfig" screens that they always refer to.
Redhat used 2.4.18-3 and updating it (with rpm) with 2.4.18-5smp was very easy but updating it to 2.4.20-18.8 already was absolutely impossible.
You end up in a dependancy war with your system ending with newer versions of Glibc that won't install because they conflict with older versions that you can not deinstall because you will get an error that they are not installed.
It's probably just me but this just doesn't sound logical to me.
I'm just glad that it is not my job to service Linux.
With windows you just download a driver, install it, and it works.
End of an extra long thrown away weekend.

[Nathan Fowler]

I never "make menuconfig", just use "make config", it's just as functional, just not as snazzy.

[Mike]

"make menuconfig" or "make config", such a small difference, did not think of that because in all descriptions I found, they only talked about "make menuconfig".
If that was the only thing than I would have a go at it again because I never give up.
It's just that the biggest problem is that for updating to 2.4.20 jou need to update a lot of packages because kernel 2.4.20 depends on many other packages.
The biggest problem is Glibc as I already wrote in my previous mail.
Have jouw got an answer for that too.

[Nathan Fowler]

You doing RPM -Uvh --force-depends?

[Kelvin]

Hi Mike,

>With windows you just download a driver, install it, and it works.

Yes, and it doesn't make you recompile the kernel to get it to work either !

By the way 'make menuconfig' does work on my development system. All I have on my development system is a stock SME 5.6 with the DevTools add on (and the source files from various things I've had to recompile in their own respective folders).

Kelvin

[Mike]

I read everywhere that rpm -i is needed with kernel patches so that is what I have done. I have tried the --force option but not the -depends option.
I will try some more options mixing -Uvh -i --force -depends.
Isn't it a problem if I force the update if I am unable to install the packages that the kernel is depending on?

Thanks for the tips.

[Mike]

Isn't there a tool that reads the kernel and then looks in a smart way how and where to insert the patchlines.
It seems that you are unable to install a patch on 2.4.18-5 if that patch is intended for 2.4.18-3.
Because I also still have the problem that al the hunks of the patch fail to install.
I can not beleave that there has been no one that has made or tried to make such a, lets call it a smartpatch utility to overcome the problem that everyone has with patching a kernel for new hardware support.