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By blobaugh, October 29, 2006 11:45 pm

On my Compaq Presario X1000 series laptop my mouse was not recognized after a kernel upgrade. I do not know if it broke because of the kernel or not, but here is how I fixed it.

• Open /etc/modules in a text editor

Put in the line 'psmouse proto=bare'

This happened on a Debian system but the solution probably works on other distros

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By blobaugh, October 29, 2006 11:40 pm

Hopefully I will coherently explain how to build a remote kernel here. I recently (well if you are reading this in 2010 it was a while ago) recieved an older server from and upgrade a buddy of mine did. I needed to rebuild the kernel for smp (Symetric MultiProcessing) but I was too impatient to wait for the slow processor so I decided to figure out how to build the kernel on my laptop which is 10x faster.

When I configured the kernel originally I was doing it from the server then copying the entire kernel directory over to build it. After doing that a couple times I got smart and just built it all on my laptop. Here's what I did.

Download the kernel source that you want to use from kernel.org (Or whatever source you choose)

Unpack the tarball to '/usr/src' and enter the newly created directory.

Now we are going to clean up a bit. Note that if you previously built a kernel in this directory it will be erased.

Run 'make mrproper then ' make clean'

Now copy the .config file over from the remote computer. This will probably be in '/usr/src/linux'. If you cannot find it there try looking in '/boot' for a file names config-. Some distributions such as Debian will not by default give you the sources so you have to copy the config file from '/boot'.

Ok this next step will integrate the config file from the remote computer into the new kernel. Run 'make oldconfig'. If you upgrading to a new kernel you will be asked about the new features now(It could be a long list. I don't understand most of what they ask so I just hold down the enter key ).

Once that is complete run 'make menuconfig'. You can now configure the kernel to your liking. Make sure that you set the correct processor type for the remote computer. When you are finished with that press escape till you are asked to save the configuration. Hit yes.

Now is the fun part. We are going to build the kernel. Type 'make'. Now go grab a cup of coffee and maybe order a pizza. This could take awhile.

So you got that part done and you are still with me? Good. Now we have to install the newly built kernel.

Debian has a really nifty simple way to do this. You will need to apt the kernel-package and libdb3-dev packages.

Still in the kernel source directory run
make-kpkg kernel-image

After scrolling a bunch of jibberish your new kernel will be collected into a debian package one directory up from the kernel source directory.

To install the kernel run 'dpkg -i kernel-image-*.deb'

Follow any instructions that may come up and reboot.

Note that debian will keep your old kernels so if this one does not work just select your old one to get your system back.

TROUBLESHOOTING
If you are using Debian and you get this error when you boot to your new kernel try adding '--initrd' to your 'make-kpkg' options:

VFS: Cannot open root device "hdxX" or unknown-block(X,X)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(X,X)

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By blobaugh, March 25, 2006 11:59 am

Wow! Now before you get excited let me preface this by saying that I use a dual (At minimum) monitor system.

So if you have been following my rantings along you will know that I installed Gnome on my desktop. Well right now I do not have a dual head card cause a friend sold my card, but I'm going to get one soon. But my conundrum is this:
I was talking with eskiled on irc when I asked him about a Gnome issue that I am having. He knows that I use fluxbox normally and he started talking about how much he wished he could use flux but how fugly it is and hard to customize. Hard to customize? I thought. Well there's a heck of a lot less to customize than in Gnome so why is it harder. Then I went to find some screenshots to show him my beautiful fluxbox (Before my hd died and took all my prettiness with it ). Along the way I encountered screenshots of my old dual head setup. And I liked them. A lot. Which leaves me with the conundrum of whether or not to switch to fluxbox again....

*sigh*

I don't know what to do! I think I am going to leave it at this. Use Gnome for now and if I like it then think about keeping it. Once I get the dual head card I can then evaluate the usefulness of Gnome with a dual head card. I think if I can just get the scroll wheel to switch desktops when the mouse is on the desktop to work, and my fluxbox shortcut keys to work I should be fine. Another options is to run Gnome as my desktop manager with fluxbox as the window manager. That would prolly be pretty tacky though

We shall see how this ends if/when Jordan gets me a new video card

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By blobaugh, March 16, 2006 3:59 am

So I've got this great idea for a program that I would like to start building this summer. I pretty much only use my laptop so I did not have a desktop system setup and I needed more power than my laptop affords me. Well I got my desktop system back from a friend and after spending a few hours getting it cleaned up (He has a VERY dusty place. It was in everything) I started installing my new favorite Linux distro on it, Debian. Ok so I get everything setup and it's all nice and purdy, now what. Well at my college we have been using Ubuntu in our Linux class, Ubuntu uses GNOME. Historically I've hated GNOME. I'm a simple man and I want a simple manager so I use fluxbox. It gives me what I want, a place to run my GUI apps. But I am starting to realize that it can be a real pain to have to do everything by hand so I thought I'd give GNOME another chance. So far it has been working out and I just may keep it around for a bit. Though I don't neccessarily like overhead the GNOME uses I do like many of the features. Such as the ability to control all my system fonts, sound alerts for some actions/errors, and I'm getting used to GNOME automagically mounting things as I insert them. Oh yeah, I'm pretty stoked about how easy GNOME makes it to connect to my network servers.

So all in all it has so far been a fairly good ride. Now I just need to get my shortcut keys I'm use to from fluxbox to work and do some other geek tweaks and I think I will be ready to start using it. Then let the programming begin!