[svlug] the continuing saga of the supercheap eMachines box;-)

[Alex Martelli]

On Jul 17, 2006, at 12:30 AM, Rick Moen wrote:
    ...
>> consider Mark Shuttleworth as a friend:-).  And I doubt gentoo is the
>> distro you steer newbies too, hm?-)  [[Haven't tried gentoo --
>> perhaps I should add a "yet", or perhaps I shouldn't:-)]]
>
> No, I don't -- but I wasn't going to say that, because I didn't  
> want to
> seem as if I were veering into distro-advocacy warfare.  (It's one  
> thing
> to say I'm a long-time Debian guy and steer unwary newcomers away from
> _Debian_; it's quite another to be one of those and bad-mouth  
> Gentoo.  ;->  )

I was simply thinking of the skills and experience that are likely  
needed to do a good install.

>> Interesting!  Considering that everything IS installed now, what boot
>> parameter should I pass the kernel to see if this "alternative"
>> works?
>
> Actually, what you'd want to do _post-installation_ is apt-get a 2.6
> kernel package, and try booting from it with and without your USB
> chipset enabled.  Let's talk for a moment about Debian's treatment of
> kernels:  If you do "dpkg -l | grep kernel-image", I suspect you'll  
> see
> something like this (querying one of my systems):
>
> ii  kernel-image-2.4.27-2-686      2.4.27-12                  Linux  
> kernel image for version 2.4.27 on PPro
>
> Note that the name of the above package is "kernel- 
> image-2.4.27-2-686",
> and the package version number is "2.4.27-12".  Regular maintenance
> would fetch new versions of "kernel-image-2.4.27-2-686", perhaps with
> security patches, but would not fetch, say, a 2.4.28 or later kernel
> because the kernel-image-* package providing such a kernel is not
> installed.

Apparently the naming convention has changed (in etch and/or in AMD46  
builds):

ii  linux-image-2.6-amd64-k8         2.6.15-8              Linux  
kernel 2.6 image on AMD64 K8 machines
ii  linux-image-2.6.15-1-amd64-k8    2.6.15-8              Linux  
kernel 2.6.15 image on AMD64 K8 machin

i.e. linux-image instead of kernel-image (even though the semantics  
stay roughly the same).

Anyway, that's what I'm running now (with a fresh install of etch and  
apt-get update):

alex at box:~$ uname -a
Linux box 2.6.15-1-amd64-k8 #2 Mon Mar 20 11:13:14 UTC 2006 x86_64  
GNU/Linux

and it still requires me to keep the USB onchip disabled, or else it  
hangs at "Detecting hardware:" during the boot sequence.


> What I'm saying, in part, is that your Debian system can have multiple
> kernel-image-* packages installed, and you can pick whichever one you
> want to boot, and which one you want as a default, in your bootloader.
>
> There are, in addition to kernel-image-* packages that track specific
> kernel releases, metapackages that _do_ take you to newer point- 
> releases
> of kernels.  E.g., I could install in my system "kernel- 
> image-2.4-686",
> a metapackage that always at any given time resolves to the latest
> "kernel-iamge-2.4.x-686" package available (highest valid value of  
> "x").
>
> Sucn metapackages exist for 2.6.x as well, and I note that there's a
> kernel-image-2.6-k7 metapackage.  You might want to browse the package
> catalogues (/var/lib/apt/*Packages) using your favourite apt front- 
> end,
> e.g., aptitude -- or using less and grep, as I do.

Ah yes, will do, thanks, but I think the linux-image-2.6-amd64-k8 is  
exactly that metapackage in this case.  Nevertheless, the info on  
metapackages IS important, thanks.

>> Thanks, but there are no occurrences of "zeroconf" on that page.
>> Perhaps you mean:
>> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Network_Other/zeroconf.html ?
>
> Yeah, sorry -- and that's catalogued on http://linuxmafia.com/kb/ 
> Network_Other/

NP, thanks for the indicator, and a Google search with site: easily  
showed the exact page anyway!


Alex