Kenneth's step by step instruction
custom kernel with PWC 10.0.4 and K8000

I am writing this for my own use. But others may use it for inspiration.

I am building my own custom kernel for Fedora Core 2 with included support for pwc (the new 10.0.4) and k8000 support (Velleman kit).

Download and unpack the kernel tree

Download kernel

Download the kernel from from http://www.kernel.org.

This was built with linux-2.6.8.1.tar.bz2

Untar the kernel sources in /usr/src

If you downloaded the tar.gz files to /usr/src use the commands below. Otherwise change your current directory to /usr/src and put the path to the tar.gz in front of the filenames.

tar xvfj linux-2.6.8.1.tar.bz2

Create a symbolic link to the new kernel sources.

If there is already one you need to delete it first rm linux

ln -s linux-2.6.8.1 linux

Remove the kernel tar.bz2 file

rm linux-2.6.8.1.tar.bz2

Download the pwc 10.0.4 patch and patch the kernel

Download the new pwc 10.0.4 driver

Download the new generation pwc 10.0.4 driver from http://www.saillard.org/pwc/

The file I used was linux-2.6.8_pwc-10.0.4.patch.bz2

Untar the pwc patch

bzip2 -d  linux-2.6.8_pwc-10.0.4.patch.bz2

Patch the kernel with new pwc driver, enter the kernel directory and patch

cd /usr/src/linux

patch -p1 < ../linux-2.6.8_pwc-10.0.4.patch

Note the -p1 (number one)

Re-use the configuration from Fedora

Find the latest configuration file

List the directory /usr/boot

ls -al /boot/config*

Find the latest config file that you wish to build on. I chose the one that came with the Fedora 2.6.8-1.521 kernel. Now copy it to the /usr/src/linux directory and give it the name .config

cp /boot/config-2.6.8-1.521 /usr/src/linux/.config

Configure your kernel.

If you have nothing to change in kernel

If you have nothing to change all you need to do is run

make oldconfig

Activating modules (such as i2c-parport-light for Velleman K8000)

However if you need to activate some extra features you need to configure your kernel. In this example I am activating the modules needed for a Velleman K8000 kit.

Start up your kernel configurator

make menuconfig (text mode for text terminal access)

or

make xconfig (graphical user interface mode - requires X)

For activating the modules needed for Velleman K8000 navigate to

Device Drivers -> I2C? Support -> I2C? Hardware Bus Support and activate Parallel Port Adapter and Parallel Port Adapter (light)

The one that is known to work with kernel 2.6.10 is Parallel Port Adapter (i2c-parport module). Activate both as Module so that you can choose one or the other.

Finally save and exit

Build the new kernel and kernel modules

Compile the kernel - make bzImage

If you have already built a kernel before you can skip this step. You then only have to run 'make modules' and 'make modules_install'.

make bzImage

Compile all the kernel modules - make modules

Next step is to make all the modules. This takes a long time. Depending on your machine from 30 minutes to several hours. Time to open a beer.

make modules

Install the new kernel and kernel modules

Install the modules - make modules_install

Next step will copy all the built modules to /lib/modules/kernel_version. This also takes some minutes.

make modules_install

Install kernel - make install

Now we install the kernel itself. This copies the kernel files into /boot and adds the new kernel to the menu in grub.conf.

make install

Save your configuration for another good time.

I suggest copying your newly made .config to /boot so that you have it for later. Use the standard naming conversion.

cp /usr/src/linux/.config /boot/config-2.6.8.1

Edit grub.conf

Edit the /boot/grub.conf file so that it chooses the kernel you want per default. Remember that it counts from zero.

To activate the new kernel as default set default=0.

Using the new kernel modules.

To activate the pwc simply do

modprobe pwc

To activate the k8000 this is known to work with kernel 2.6.10

#Make parallel port free for velleman
rmmod lp
rmmod parport_pc
rmmod parport

#Load i2c driver modules for velleman
modprobe i2c-parport type=2
modprobe i2c-dev

---

Old pwc 9.0.2 / pwcx 9.0 installation.

See HowToPatchPWC9PWCX9OnKernel2dot6

-- KennethLavrsen - 10 Oct 2004