I picked up a RocketRaid 1640 card b/c it had support for "RedHat". Apparently, their version of "RedHat" is "stable"(9), which I pointed out was "dead" for all security purposes... (at least, that was what I understood from someone in one of the RH/clone IRC channels.)

It turns out that I need to build a new driver from their open source code. This task is a little over my head. (Appears to be a 'lot' over my head, but I'm assuming that it just looks bigger than it is b/c I keep reading "compiling a kernel isn't that hard..." ... yet, I've yet to be successful on any platform.)

I'm in this mess because I recommended our company use Linux for a fileserver. I think that once it is up and running, it will be the rock-solid workhorse that I claimed it could be... however, I've got to get past this hurdle first.

Is there a FAQ for compiling a new kernel specifically for CentOS 4.1? I've tried some of the generic flavored FAQs, but I tend to get confused with the differences between the flavors. (I was reading something in the slackware forums about using lilo as the first step to compiling a new kernel... ) -- the point is that someone tells me "CentOS is identical to RHEL 4", then I go and look at RHEL 4 docs, and they say that the source package for the kernel has been removed, and you need to download the RPM which is only available from them... I can't be sure, however, I don't think CentOS is identical in this way...

Really, I'd like a FAQ for specific kernel compilation on CentOS 4.1, however, failing that, here are the error messages that I'm getting:

In trying to follow this guide: http://crab-lab.zool.ohiou.edu/kevin/kernel-compilation-tutorial-en/index.ht... , I was unable to complete step 4: first and foremost, there was no mention of rpm-build in that guide, which I was told I needed to install, and did, seemingly without issue. This was the next message I received:

[root@localhost jae]# rpm -ivh kernel-2.6.9-11.EL.src.rpm 1:kernel warning: user builder does not exist - using root warning: group builder does not exist - using root warning: user builder does not exist - using root

... Which I suspect was my own fault for trying to use a non-root script as root to install the kernel source.

Exiting root status back into my user account yielded this:

sh: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `"' sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file

I have no idea what these messages are trying to tell me... but I did note further links in this guide, and ultimately modified /etc/rpm/macros, copying this code: http://users.tkk.fi/~tkarvine/rpm-build-as-user.html

... which resulted in more errors:

[j@localhost ~]$ sudo rpm -ivh kernel-2.6.9-11.EL.src.rpm sh: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `"' sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file sh: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `"' sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file sh: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `"' sh: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file error: cannot create %sourcedir /rpmbuild/kernel

... Can someone *please* point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

-- J.N.