Setting up Eternal Lands in Linux.

[Cicero]

You probably have a file like /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.4 (or whatever version you're using). It needs to contain a line that says "nvidia" if you want it to automatically load the nvidia module on boot.

[Brom]

Actually I tried that method, the file was modules.conf and adding nvidia didnt do it it was a more complicated line, but I id figure it out! here is my soultion.

DONT UPDATE MY KERNEL because when I update I dont get the source of the new kernel thus cannot build a module for it using the Nvidia installer. but I reverted back to the "unupdated" kernel and it works swell! well, well enough it doesnt boot very quickly (the screen flashes 5 times before I get the Nvidia logo) but it works! Ill be playing EL more now!

 

Please note:Runescape 2 was just realsed. you may want to go look at it Admins.

[Cicero]

um, modules.conf != modules autoload....

[Wytter]

Hmm, there must be a kernel-sources package in SuSe package system...

 

In case you don't understand programming language != means not equal to... You have to find the file that sets the modules that should be loaded at boot-time (usually /etc/modules.autoload or /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-x.x).

[Brom]

Im not worried about Kernel right now. I can live with the older one. The problem I have is this. I can get the source of the old kernel off of my Suse CD whereas when I download the "update" the source does not come. all in all the Nvidia installer wont work with the new kernel. Im playing now, My next step is to learn how to do everything I can harvest flowers all Day! MUAHAHA (figuratively)

[Mhorghinach]

Hello,

 

it's quite some time ago, the last Suse version I used was 4.2, but they use rpm, so I assume you will do your system update with a tool like kpackage or an update tool provided by SuSe. If you use kpackage (maybe you will use a gnome equivalent when using gnome desktop) there should be an option, which tells the updater not download kernel files, or kernel-source files. Check this option, something may be also available if suse uses its own system updater tool. This may be the reason you can't get the source files for the kernel.

 

As an alternative you can download the source from suse ftp server. The sources you need are on any suse ftp mirror, for example ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/p....21-199.src.rpm

If you updated your kernel look in the sibling directories for a kernel-source*.src.rpm or maybe a kernel-source*.spm package file and download the one according to your current kernel number. The one I told you is the one corresponding to the kernel you have given in a previous msg in the thread.

 

Login as root and move this file to your corresponding /usr/src directory (with redhat this is /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS, i believe suse uses something like /usr/src/packages). If there is no such directory don't bother and create some directories. These file needed later by a tool to exist. Issue the command

mkdir -p /usr/src/rpm/{BUILD,SRPMS,SPECS,SOURCES,RPMS/i{3,4,5,6}86,RPM/noarch}

to create this directory structure (note the braces {}), then move the download kernel source package to the SRPMS directory. No issue the following command

rpmbuild --buildroot=/var/tmp --rebuild SRPMS/kernel-source-2.4.21-199.src.rpm

This will unpack the source rpm package, puts a spec file in the SPECS subdirs and the sources and patches in the SOURCES subdir, then unpacks the sources into the build directory and actually builds a rpm package out of it. The parameter --buildroot may not be necessary, depending on the suse configuration of the rpm tool. On redhat /var/tmp is the default buildroot, don't know which value suse uses. However it is a security parameter to ensure nothing of your running environment get corrupted by accident. It doesn't matter if when you use it, even if your system is properly configured. In this dir will the compiled applications be installed and rpm will build its package from the files in the directory tree given by this variable. The finished rpm package will be copied somewhere under the RPMS folder, so just look there. I assume, the kernel spec file will contain any needed kernel target, so you may have more than one file at the end. You only need to install the package which is named something like kernel-source-*.rpm. Install this file using

rpm -ivh RPMS/i386/kernel-source-2.4.21-199.rpm

This will create a directory

/usr/src/linux-2.4.21

and a symbolic link

/usr/src/linux-2.4

pointing to this directory.

 

Change to the directory

cd /usr/src/linux-2.4

(note use always the symbolic link when compiling the kernel or else it may fail) and issue the command

make mrproper

This command will ensure your kernel tree is really clean and will create some links necessary to build the kernel and also other software which uses kernel header files.

 

You normally should not need to rebuild your kernel. If so, however before you configure the kernel, double-check if there are no config files provided by suse with the kernel-source package (redhat provides them for each kernel they provide). Check to see if there is a directory called configs within your kernel source tree:

ls configs

If this directory exists (aka there's no msg like "no such dir") look if there's a file conforming to your configuration (e.g. kernel-2.4.21-199-athlon.config) and copy this file to the kernel root by renaming it to .config, i.e.

cp -v configs/kernel-2.4.21-199-athlon.config ./.config

Then run

make xconfig

which will build and run the X version of the kernel configuration tool (you must have installed Tcl/Tk for this to work). Be careful not to change anything now, but feel free to skim through the options if you wish. The kernel has several hundred options by now to configure. Click the

Save config & exit

button to save the configuration and let make do some other needed things.

Now open the Makefile with some texteditor and look at the top of the file. There are some variables in capital letters which will provide the kernel version numbers. With your kernel there should be something like

VERSION = 2

PATCHLEVEL = 4

SUBLEVEL = 21

EXTRAVERSION = 199

Ensure that the EXTRAVERSION variable is set to the same value as your kernel. Some distributions change the kernel configuration adding some appendix to this value to differentiate pre-build kernels from selfmade. But you will not compile the kernel but

only enable nvidia to use the kernel. If you ever want to try to compile the kernel, please be sure, that this variable has some unique value. A common way to do this, is to add

'-1', '-2', '-3' and so on, each time you compile a new kernel.

Then run

make dep

. You should not need to build the entire kernel. If you need though (that is, the nvidia driver compilation later fails) be sure to look at some manual before :lol: It will be also ways easier for you if you start with a pre-configured system, provided by suse. This way you get the same configuration as you have currently running and can start playing with some of the options. Don't change too many options at once, as long as you are unsure what you are doing. Starting kernel configuration from scratch can be an annoying task if you not exactly know what any of these several hundred kernel options mean.

 

You should now be able to compile your nvidia driver. If it still does not work, I will need more information, for example where it fails, compiler & linker output, etc.

 

Hope this helps

[Brom]

Thank you, I dont plan on messing with my kernel because I dont really need to, this kernel works fine. If I get to the point that I need to upgrade kernels I will refer back to this. You seem to know a lot about linux Im very new. so new that installing from source will scares me because there are so many Dependences! RPMs work of course, but give me time and I may feel comfortable doing that. Thank you again.

[Mhorghinach]

Stay with rpms until you are more comfortable with linux I use linux for quite a long tme now, and i'm happy if i am not in need to compile stuff myself. Some years ago, I was in a mood to compile anything myself thats were I played some time with LFS (that is Linux from Scratch, a distri where you compile anything yourself, and setup a complete system by yourself). But I came back to a regular distri, cause this will simplify things much, even if not everything is compiled to the optimum for the current machine.

 

Well I started with linux back in 1992/3 because of need of a good TeX distribution which didn't exist for dos/windows 3.1 at this time. It was 50 discettes for the linux distribution (kernel 0.97) and another 30 discettes for the TeX distri. Took about 3 three days, until the system runs quite smooth (: