DSL Ideas and Suggestions :: Potential kernel modification to get reliable wifi



How did you do it so you get the card function? I have the same problem with my Rt2500 card and cant use the  Dsl. Its very harm because it a fine distro.  Help,please.
You have to download the 2.4.31 kernel sources, and dsl.config, use dsl.config as .config, make menuconfig -> remove SMP, add APIC, apply the Knoppix kernel patch, remove the part that hard codes gcc-2.95. I used a seperate Ubuntu installation to build the actual kernel, gcc3.4, since that way I could use the make-kpkg tools.

Then I more or less followed this guide:
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/bin/view/Linux/RemasteringGuide

I had 2 remastering/source directories, one with dpkg reenabled so I could install the new kernel .deb, the other was the original nothing-added DSL. Installed the kernel.deb, the rt2500.o and cloop.o, in the chrooted, beefed up source directory. depmod'd to rebuild the modules dependency file. Then copied across the newly created /lib/modules/2.4.31 and /boot directory (Not sure the /boot dir is needed) to the original DSL source, (ie. not the one full of the restored dpkg stuff). I removed the lib/modules/2.4.31 directory from here first, to avoid potential kernel panics if it used the wrong module.

Then in the master/boot/isolinux dir, I changed the linux24 file for the new kernel. Loop mounted up minrt24.gz, replaced the cloop.o and scsi drivers, closed minirt24.gz again. Remastered the iso as per the guide.

Oh, I also copied across /etc/networks/interfaces from my Ubuntu distro, which is used to set up the card (security note - I have the WPA key stored on the CD... very secure! Not.).

It's not exactly a newbie friendly process and isn't too well documented "step by step". Also, once booted I have to type "sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart" to get the network going. This could possibly be overcome by added the appropriate link in rc.d before remastering, not sure.
Thanks!
I will try, i hope i can do all of that you explained. Little difficult....yes it is. :p
But I still don't understand why it worked with DSL 1.5

DSL 1.5 also has a SMP enabled kernel.
Well, does the latest cvs rt2500 driver work in DSL 1.5? If so, then the changes are probably related to changes made in the kernel between 2.4.26 and 2.4.31. I'm afraid I don't know exactly what the changes were, but I can guess that they made soft interrupts "more concurrent" and have uncovered deadlocks lurking in this driver.
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