Randall wrote:
To all:
How does a newbie get beyond a speed bump like this? I downloaded Suse 10.3
linux from the openSuse archives, and let it auto-install a 64 bit version
for my Athlon 64 3200+ processor MOBO.
Then I found my onboard sound card (Nvidia MCP61) didn't work. I followed all
the dumb approaches listed on Google including the troubleshooting sound card
web site that openSuse had created just for sound card troubles.
It finally turns out that I had to rebuild the kernel (2.6.22.18) and enable
the onboard sound chip support module to fix the problem.
How is a newbie supposed to know how to rebuild his/her kernel to fix a
problem like this?
They aren't. A newbie would use a distribution that supports their hardware.
It's like jumping from newbie to kernel-hacker in one step.
Hardly. If you had chosen wisely, either hardware or software, you
wouldn't have had this problem.
Is this why people get discouraged about linux?
Who's discouraged? Why aren't you angry with the motherboard manufacture
for not supplying you a driver? Since a solution exists, why hasn't
Novell created an update to fix your problem?
Just asking (probably rhetorical)
The first thing you should do is see if someone else has solved the
problem for you. It may turn out that waiting a short time may result in
an upgrade taking care of the problem. I'm not familiar with how fast
openSuse does updates, but Fedora 8 is already on the 2.6.25 kernel and
includes custom patches from Redhat. Your system is three releases behind.
In your case you only need to rebuild a single module. There is no
longer a need to rebuild the entire kernel. See these directions for
Fedora <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/CustomKernel> at the very
bottom of the page. openSuse is very similar to Fedora and works the
same way. You will need to get the kernel module source then apply the
patch and build the module. The additional package you need is the
kernel-headers. A similar how-to is available for Debian-like (Debian,
Ubuntu, etc) here:
<http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/build-linux-kernel-module-against-installed-kernel-source-tree.html>
Gus
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