[ltp] Several Problems on Gentoo with T43

[Matt Graham]

On Wednesday 22 March 2006 11:27, after a long battle with technology, 
baule@zitmail.uni-paderborn.de wrote:
> sorry i didn't know, that the mail was sent, it wasn't finished yet.
> Otherwise you would have more informations from me ;-)

S'OK.  It looked unfinished, but you never really know....

> I managed to install both alsa and ati, seemed to be some problems
> with compiling the kernel. Recompiling it made me able to emerge the
> necessary packages.

Yes, that's how it usually goes.

> >> > 04:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless
> >> > 2915ABG Network Connection (rev 05)
> > 2915, not 2200, but it should still work.
> I got several problems with my wireless configuration.
> I can't connect while booting (net.eth0 no accesspoint found...) but
> when i manually restart the init-Skript in Console it does find the
> correct AP. After 10 minutes I get disconnected without error messages 
> and must restart the script again.

Interesting.  Er... which exact version of ipw2200 are you using?  There 
are a fair number of them, some more stable than others.  If it has an 
even number as the last digit, it's stable; odd number is development.  
So you'd want to try 1.1.0 first, not 1.1.1.  I don't know for sure 
what could be causing your access point problems; I haven't used my 
ipw2200 that much.  (No 802.11 at work, and leeching off the factory 
default access point one of my less-bright neighbors set up just 
seems... rude.)

> I use the ipw2200 drivers and firmware from testing-portage (same
> problem with stable portage). I can't find a driver for 2915
> directly, what do you mean with 2915?

The 2915 and 2200 are similar (but different) and are supported by the 
same kernel module.  Comments on ipw2200.sourceforge.net and the Gentoo 
forums made me feel that 1.1.0 was the right version of ipw2200 to try.

> 1.) I can not emerge ibm-acpi.
> Entering directoy `usr/src/linu-2.6.15-gentoo-r7`
> CC[M] /var/tmp/portage/ibm-acpi-0.11-r1/work/ibm-acpi-0.11/ibm_acpi.o
> Building modules, stage 2.
> MODPOST
> /bin/sh: scripts/mod/modpost: No such file or directory

Hm.  This should be 
in /usr/src/linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r7/scripts/mod/modpost if you've 
configured and built a kernel.  And it shouldn't be necessary to build 
this as a separate package; the ibm_acpi module in 2.6.15.6 vanilla 
seems to work just fine on a T42p.  (Your T43 may vary.)

> Is there a different way to get it started with experimental=1? Can i
> load the modules that are already in the kernel with a different
> parameter while booting?

?  If something's built in to the kernel, you can sometimes change its 
behavior with parameters passed on the kernel command line.  Fiddling 
with that won't help the problem that "emerge ibm-acpi" reported.

> > (The only reason I feel partially confident in telling
> > you what to do here is that I had similar problems with installing
> > Gentoo on my T42p 2 weeks ago....)
> I appreciate that, i am not a total beginner but still only following
> tutorials :-) Can you give me some hints, what packages/scripts/etc
> are useful for my TP?

Useful stuff: tpb, radeontool, xbindkeys, and all the junk 
under /etc/acpi/ .  Note that you may get weird things happening with 
ACPI events; my T42p generates an event of type "button/lid" when the 
lid's closed, but an event of type "processor/processor" when the lid's 
opened.  Weird, but workaroundable.

-- 
   Seemingly ordinary humans transform into rage-fueled sarcasm
   dispensers.  I love it!  --Patrick Shaughnessy
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see