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dallas7
09-23-2003, 01:52 AM
Is it possible to install new hardware drivers for a CD-only system? If the answer is "no" then the rest of this post is moot. Otherwise, please read on:

I found drivers for my WPC51AB and extracted them to /ramdisk/knoppix/home. Everything seems to go OK until after executing "make install" writes of three .o files are attempted to //lib/modules/2.4.21-xfs/net which, of course, is the CD. (That path is determined by the contents of the included makefile.inc file.)

Where else could these files be copied to and how does one "reboot" so the new hardware can be detected?

Thanks!

donl
09-23-2003, 04:28 AM
New to linux, so don't really know if it can help. Maybe if you do the "Poor Mans Install"....think that is what its called, the cd is copied to a partition and initial boot is with floppy or cd, and then harddrive takes over...no more cd drive spooling up and pretty fast. This may be a solution to your problem....don't really know. Heck, had a problem with OpenOffice being in german v72603 on hdinstall and never got any help and never found any post that helped...spent hours...put figured out what I think happened...Anyway, this is big letdown for newbie's first dive into new OS.....Its great stuff though once you figure things out....good luck

didac
09-23-2003, 08:06 AM
What you are trying to do with the new driver is no beginners question.
There is no easy plug and play way of adding drivers.
The obvious solution is change the path in the makefile to a part of the ram disk that does not try to write to cd. But I don't have any experience at that.

If you have the compiled drivers handy, you can put them on a supplemental floppy and add a cheatcode in the knoppix startup line so you can load the driver.

A cd-only system? No harddisk, no floppy, no network, no parallel port, no serial, no usb?

If you want to change hardware settings, first do a harddisk install (not the poormans install the previous post mentiones) and then install the driver.

If you want a bootable cd with the new driver, you need to remaster.
Info about harddisk installs and remastering can be found on the wiki

happy nixing

didac
09-23-2003, 08:21 AM
one thing more:
openoffice being german.
Klaus Knopper is german and he created knoppix as a tool for himself.
Thus openoffice was german even in the -en version.
The new 3.3-en apparently has the english version.

If you have made the harddisk install you get a debian system.
you can install wathever you like then.

apt-get remove the openoffice in question
apt-get install openoffice.org and the i18-en packages
One application worth mentioning for newcomers is synaptic.
apt-get install synaptic.
It gives a graphical interface to the apt-get process.

Before starting to deinstall and reinstall packages read the information you can find about the apt-get system on www.debian.org
There is loads of info once you start using the internet. ( another interesting link: linux documentation project www.tldp.org)

If you don't like the packages you can remaster, the tools and info are available on the wiki. So many options it's easy to get lost.

Questions relating to things that are readily to be found on the FAQs and Documentation pages are unlikely to be answered in this channel.
In unix the use of RTFM (read the [fine] manual) is still appropriate and die hard nix'ers tend to apply that rather the hard way.

No offence
You'll find your way for sure
I have been a user of Linux since redhat 5.0 and I am still impressed daily about the stuff you can do for free. (and have fun doing it)


Edited for profanity, please choose the words more carefully Stephen.