End of an Era – Linus Removes .386 CPU Support

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Linux was first developed by Linus on an old .386 system, way back in 1991, and now that cord has been cut, and .386 CPUs are no longer supported: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=commit;h=743aa456c1834f76982af44e8b71d1a0b2a82e21 From the comments: Pull “Nuke 386-DX/SX support” from Ingo Molnar:  “This tree removes ancient-386-CPUs support and thus zaps quite a bit   of complexity:     24 files changed, 56 insertions(+), 425 deletions(-)   … which complexity has plagued us with extra work whenever we wanted   to change SMP primitives, for years.   Unfortunately there’s a nostalgic cost: your old original 386 DX33   system from early 1991 won’t be able to boot modern Linux kernels   anymore.  Sniff.” I’m not sentimental.  Good riddance. My first ‘home’ Linux system – in 1997 – was an HP Vectra 486 … Continue reading →

Dreamplug to 3.7 – and an Obsolete Patch..

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Just updated the Dreamplug kernel to 3.7, and – although I don’t use it – decided to see if the Marvell-supplied 8688_UAP (Access Point) patch still worked.. Not surprisingly, the patch worked, but the compilation failed: CC [M]  drivers/net/wireless/libertas_uap/uap_main.o drivers/net/wireless/libertas_uap/uap_main.c: In function ‘uap_init_sw’: drivers/net/wireless/libertas_uap/uap_main.c:446:44: warning: passing argument 3 of ‘netlink_kernel_create’ makes pointer from integer without a cast … Continue reading →

Finally – 3.7 is out..

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Finally, kernel 3.7 is released… I updated my main x86_64 system, and all seems to be OK, as expected.    The latest NVIDIA driver – 310.19 – compiles and runs OK, and VMware 9.0.1 compiles after the usual workaround for version.h: # ln -s /usr/src/linux-3.7/include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h /usr/src/linux-3.7/include/linux/version.h Note that this example is for the official source from kernel.org.    You … Continue reading →

And Now.. Dreamplug to F18..

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After the success of the Raspberry Pi, I have now updated the Dreamplug to Fedora 18, using yum…. This time, the rpm –import…  worked fine, and the whole process went very smoothly.. Fedora release 18 (Spherical Cow) Kernel 3.7.0-rc5 on an armv5tel (ttyS0) Robert Gadsdon.  December 11th, 2012. … Continue reading →

Pi – Update to Fedora 18..

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As the Fedora 18 Beta had been stable on my x86_64 test system, I decided to update the Pi from F17 to F18..   As there is no ‘update’ image available, the only way is to use YUM..    Instructions are on the Fedora site: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading_Fedora_using_yum#Fedora_17_-.3E_Fedora_18 I found that the rpm –import command failed with a curl error: # … Continue reading →

Raspberry Pi – Kernel to 3.6.9..

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The 3.6.y branch of the kernel on GitHub has now been updated to 3.6.9, in step with the ‘mainline’ kernel.. To get the source, you may need to explicitly reference the rpi-3.6.y.tar.gz download, instead of the (default) rpi-3.2.7.tar.gz https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/archive/rpi-3.6.y.tar.gz Compilation was as described in earlier posts.. Fedora release 17 (Beefy Miracle) Kernel 3.6.9-pi on an armv6l (ttyAMA0) … Continue reading →

APC – Kernel Source – Signs of Life?

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After a gap of over three months, there seems to be some activity with the APC kernel and uboot source on GitHub.. https://github.com/apc-io/apc-8750 Changes were made on December 2nd, but would appear to have been in error, for some reason, and the latest ‘commit’ is marked ‘Revert’..     The kernel version seems to have been the same, but … Continue reading →

Latest and Greatest.. 3.6.8 and 3.7-rc7..

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Kernel 3.6.8 is just business as usual, and everything works as expected..   There might not have been a need for another -rc before 3.7 was released, but apparently there was a late rush of changes and bugfixes, so now there is 3.7-rc7..   Same caveats apply as for -rc6..   NVIDIA driver (310.19) compiles OK, and VMware 9.0.1 still … Continue reading →

Pi to 3.6.7.. and a Hardware Problem!

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The 3.6.y tree at GitHub has now been updated to 3.6.7, keeping pace with the ‘mainline’ kernel. Compiling was similar to 3.6.6, and there is still a missing header file:   CC [M]  drivers/net/wireless/hostap/hostap_80211_rx.o In file included from drivers/net/wireless/hostap/hostap.h:7:0,                  from drivers/net/wireless/hostap/hostap_80211_rx.c:8: drivers/net/wireless/hostap/hostap_wlan.h:13:27: fatal error: hostap_common.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated. make[4]: *** [drivers/net/wireless/hostap/hostap_80211_rx.o] Error … Continue reading →

Android VM – with VMware

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Now that I have several Android devices – having just taken delivery of an ‘inexpensive’ 7in tablet – I decided it would be interesting to run the OS in a VMware virtual machine.. You can get a ‘VirtualBox’ Android 4 image at http://androvm.org/blog/download/  and then convert it to a VMware VM, by opening the xxxx.ova file using … Continue reading →