On Wednesday, March 23, 2011 16:02:14 WestHurley ComputerReCycling wrote:
> We have some hardware that is poorly supported in Linux. One Example is
> Mac Formatted (HFS+) iPod on Linux.
> http://ipl.derpapst.eu/wiki/Installation_from_Linux_Hfsplus

Okay -- can you please state the actual problem?  The page in the link above 
doesn't clearly state it on its own.  The problem it mentions has to do with 
journaling, and the "fix" suggested is to reformat the iPod without journaling 
support, which a manual driver support doesn't fix.  So... huh?

> Will be running a number of tests on different clean HDDs using this
> hardware and the manual driver installs are tedious and time consuming.
> Any suggestions how to make this more automated?"

Some packages for external modules use DKMS [Dynamic Kernel Module Support 
Framework] as a solution for dealing with this.

   http://linux.die.net/man/8/dkms
   http://linux.dell.com/dkms/

The good news is that DKMS can auto-build external modules when you rebuild or 
install a new kernel.  The bad news is that you need the source installed for 
the kernel for it to work, and I believe it builds the kernel as root IIRC.




Now, personally I prefer another method: when I build a kernel (in Debian), I 
use the kernel-package package to build both the kernel image and all of the 
external modules I have installed, all in one shot.  I modify .kernel-pkg.conf 
in my home directory to move the expected module location to a place in my 
home directory, such as this:

   # Change modules location from default
   MODULE_LOC := ~/src/Linux2.6/modules

and then I also have kernel sources within ~/src/Linux2.6/ with each version 
of the kernel I'm working (usually the stable series) with in its own 
directory, such as ~/src/Linux2.6/linux-2.6.37.y/ which is how they come down 
from git.kernel.org.

Then after I've configured the kernel within its own directory, from witin 
that same directory the actual command line I execute looks like this:

'fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --revision=2.6.37.4+c2d+crk4 kernel_image 
modules_image'

This builds both the kernel and all of the modules as .deb packages, leaves 
them all in ~/src/Linux2.6/ and then I become root to actually install them.

As I find this convenient enough, I don't use DKMS.

So basically which solution you choose depends on whether you're building your 
own kernel or not, or if you're using the stock kernel from your distribution.  

> We have previously encountered this problem using various versions of
> Windows so routinely backup nonstandard Windows drivers with "Double
> Driver" and install them from a USB Drive after a standard Windows
> install.
> 
> Would like to do something similar for the Linux poorly supported
> hardware but so far have been unable to find even one Linux Driver
> Backup App.
> 
> Open to any suggestions.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Gene

If these answers don't help you enough, then try being more specific about the 
problems you're running into.

  -- Chris

--

Chris Knadle
[email protected]
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