Re: Fedora 13 PAE Kernel and realtec driver compilation problem.

Wednesday, 27 October 2010

  On 10/27/2010 07:32 PM, eredicatorx(a)hugedesigns.net wrote:
...
 On 10/28/2010 11:17 AM, JD wrote:
>     On 10/27/2010 06:03 PM, EredicatorX wrote:
>
>>      Short version.
>> OS: Fedora 13
>> Kernel: 2.6.34.7-61.fc13.i686.PAE
>> Hardware: Lenovo x100e
>> Problem:Trying to build drivers for realtec wireless lan.
>>
>> When I tried to build drivers initally with
>> rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0018.1025.2010 every time I would try to load the
>> driver with modprobe it would error and say " Invalid module format"
>>
>>      modprobe r8192se_pci
>> FATAL: Error inserting r8192se_pci
>>
(/lib/modules/2.6.34.7-61.fc13.i686.PAE/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/r8192se_pci.ko):
>> Invalid module format
>>
>> I modified /usr/src/kernel/2.6.34.7-61.fc13.i686/Makefile and changed
>>      EXTRAVERSION = .7-61.fc13.i686
>> TO
>>      EXTRAVERSION = .7-61.fc13.i686.PAE
>>
>> I then did "make modules" which generated a new version of
version.h&
>> utsrelease.h which had the correct PAE version in it. The build error
>> out after that.
>>
>> Went back to my sources and did a make clean, make and then make install.
>>
>> modprobe r8192se_pci now cause a core dump.
>>
>> I have built kernels in the past but it has been a long time and never
>> had to build a PAE version. What else would be required for me to change
>> in order to build the kernel modules correctly and then build the
>> driver? In the end I am not trying to compile a custom kernel I simply
>> want to use the kernel I have and be able to build drivers against it as
>> needed.
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>>
> After you edited the Makefile so the extra version has the PAE,
> does not guarantee to you that the kernel config file you chose
> chose is the i686-PAE config file.
> If you really want to build the kernel from source correctly,
> follow the instructions at
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/CustomKernel
>
 Thanks JD,

 My goal is not to build a custom kernel. My goal is to build drivers for
 the current kernel that work.
 The problem is the PAE extension on the current kernel name keeps me
 from being able to do it and have the drivers load.

 Is there another way to do this, besides building a custom kernel?

 E./ 
Don't let the words "Custom Kernel" make you
imagine that y ou are building something fancy.
All you are doing is building the same kernel as you now have,
except, you will enable drivers that you currently do not have
in the vanilla Fedora kernel, because the drivers you want are
in the "staging" area, and thus are not automatically built
for distribution.
You will skip the parts where you need to copy the old kernel
tree to .org, ....etc You will not be inserting new source
modules and you will not be building your own modules.
What I will do is copy and paste exactly the steps that
YOU need to do in order to build your kernel with  your
device enabled.

01. su -c 'yum install rpmdevtools'

02. cd ~

03. rpmdev-setuptree

04. yumdownloader --source kernel

05. sudo yum-builddep kernel-2.6.34.7-61.fc13.src.rpm
    If you do not have sudo permission, then you have to know
    the super user password and do
    su -c 'yum-builddep kernel-2.6.34.7-61.fc13.src.rpm'

06. cd ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS

07. rpm -Uvh kernel-2.6.34.7-61.fc13.src.rpm

08. cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS

09. rpmbuild -v -bp --target=`uname -m` kernel.spec

10. cd ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/kernel-2.6.34.fc13/linux-2.6.34.i686*

11. cp configs/kernel-2.6.34.7-i686-PAE.config .config

12. make oldconfig

13. make xconfig
     This will pop up the cong GUI.
     Scroll the left column of the GUI all the way down.
     In the middle of the page you will see
     Staging Drivers
     It is a small print with an empty square on it's left.
     Click the square so it shows a check mark.

14. On the right side of the GUI you will see the selection for
     RealTek RTL8192E Wireless LAN NIC driver (RTL8192E)
     with a tiny square on it's left.
     Click the square so it shows the check mark.

15. If this is all you need as far as drivers, then click
     on the dark square icon under the tab "Option". That
     will save the .config file.

16. Click File->Quit

17. cp .config ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/config-i686-PAE

18. cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS

19. rpmbuild -v -bb --target=i686-PAE kernel.spec

After the build finishes, it will show you that it built, among other other
variants of the kernel,
/home/YourDir/rpmbuild/RPMS/i686/kernel-2.6.34.7-61.fc13.i686-PAE.rpm

Now, installing the newly built kernel is just a matter of:

20. rpm -Uvh --nodeps --force 
/home/YourDir/rpmbuild/RPMS/i686/kernel-2.6.34.7-61.fc13.i686-PAE.rpm

      Reason I used --nodeps --force is because I am just not sure 
whether or not the rpm command will
      bitch at you, since you already have this version of the kernel 
already installed.

21. Reboot.

Your device will be recognized.

Cheers, and good luck.