[CentOS] Introduction

[Niki Kovacs]

Dag Wieers a écrit :
> 
> Hi Niki,

Hi Dag,

> 
> I maintain an add-on repository for CentOS called RPMforge.

Yeah, I just discovered - and configured - it.

> 
> I'm very interested to look at the hardware issues you may have and see 
> how we can fix them using dkms modules. Of course, fixing and packaging 
> hardware drivers requires some investigation and guidance from you.

Besides various ATI and NVidia cards, my main issue are wireless cards, 
namely:

- RT2500
- RT2561
- Intel Pro 3945

I'm currently busy sinking my teeth into the CentOS docs, to get a 
firmer grasp of the Red Hat way to do things. This will take me a few 
days, maybe weeks. If not months. Right now for example, I have to 
rebuild my kernel - to enable one option (VESA) and disable one other 
(SMP, which causes the system to freeze with the rt61 driver). I know 
how to do this with Slackware and Debian, but I want to do it the proper 
Red Hat way with CentOS, which is essentially new to me.

> 
> Let me know what I can assist you with.

A very good thing to do would be to provide source RPM packages for 
various drivers. I don't know exactly if this is feasible, but let me 
give you an example. To install and configure an RT2500 wireless card 
with Debian, all you have to do is this:

# apt-get install module-assistant
# module-assistant prepare --> this fetches all the tools necessary for 
compilation
# apt-get install rt2500-source
# module-assistant auto-install rt2500-source --> builds the module as a 
.deb package and installs it for the running kernel
# modprobe rt2500
# ifconfig -a
Etcetera... dead easy. (Well, no, dead easy is Ubuntu that already *has* 
all these modules available by default :o/ )

On the other hand, there seem to be way less stock kernels around with 
CentOS than with Debian, so featuring binary modules would be somewhat 
easier to maintain. I don't know.

Anyway, thanks for the kind offer of help. As we say in my native 
Austria: Eine Hand wäscht die andere. One hand washes the other one.

Cheers,

Niki
-- 
Dyslexics have more fnu.