so, I haven’t been able to keep track of what i’ve been working on formally, but here’s a general overview.
linux kernel upgrade
I wanted ftape support and I wanted loopback encryption, so I had to do a kernel recompile anyway, so I figured I’d upgrade from whatever 2.4.x kernel is the default for debian testing to 2.4.8. I learned a thing or two about building kernel packages for debian which is kind of a slick system. I’ll post the helpful links later.
I ran in to a slew of problems trying to select the right kernel options, mainly forgetting to compile certain modules or compiling things as modules what should have been in the kernel. The biggest problem was that I kept getting a
kernel panic: VFS: Cannot open root device hdb1 or unknown-block (0, 0) please append a correct “root=” boot option
kernel panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (0,0)
This was because I wasn’t using an initial ramdisk and had forgotten to compile ext2 fs, ext3 fs, ide support, and support for my PIIX4 into the kernel and not as a module.
Then, X wouldn’t start. I don’t think that I compiled the kernel modules correctly for framebuffer support. That’s okay though, because you don’t need fb support to run X. I just modified my XF86Config-4 file to comment out the fb use and X was okay.
Finally, I didn’t have support for my USB mouse. I had compiled the mouse drivers, but forgot to compile in support for my OHCI USB controller.
After fixing those things, all the functionality that I need seems to be there, though I haven’t set up ALSA for sound yet.
terrorware.com
I upgraded the main terrorware.com site to the newest version of drupal. This has user roles which allows the news aggregator blocks to show up for anonymous users.