Replacing the kernel?

Is it possible to replace the kernel? (How?) Or, has the kernel been built with module support?

More to the point, in the project I want to pursue I will need to enable ppp; how can I go about getting it?

You should be able to run the pppd debian package available from http://www.debian.org/ports/arm.
You can use alien to convert it to a tgz and use sz/rz to transfer it up.


--
Raphael Wegmann
[email protected]

I have not found a pre-built Debian ARM ppp package (other than ppxp) so I have been assuming I will have to build one myself. However, that's not what's troubling me.

It doesn't appear that the beta6 developer image's kernel provides the necessary network support for PPP. So my question is, how can I add it?

I've just built a PPP kernel - it's on http://www2.empeg.com/upgrades/tools/pppkernel.upgrade - this just puts a PPP capable kernel in place. I'll get round to releasing makeupgrade.cpp shortly, which basically allows you to build your own upgrade files for the empeg (use with care!).

You'll still need to build a pppd to control it though - I can't seem to find the one we played with. Shouldn't be too hard though. You'll probably need the whole net-stuff like ifconfig & so on too.

Hugo

Thanks very much!

I have just finished building a ppp package, and already have all the other net stuff (ifconfig, route, netstat, etc.)

This is going to be fun.

Is there any likelihood that the complete package can be put up on the board for a download?

I'm planning to put something together, yes -- and when I do I'll announce it here.

At the moment I have PPP working over the serial line to a host machine running Linux, and I am busy building other packages I need. I am actually doing much of the development on the empeg itself; I carved out some space on /drive0 and installed a minimal Debian system there so I could build a chrooted environment without touching the /dev/hda1 root filesystem. PPP has made downloading and installing Debian packages a snap with apt-get, but not all the packages I need are available for ARM, so I am building many myself.

As soon as I finish building what I need I plan to revisit the old root filesystem, probably by making a copy in /dev/hda2 and adding my "upgrade" components there. Then I can either distribute a simple tarball patch with the changes or, when Hugo releases his makeupgrade.cpp, a bona fide upgrade image.

At the moment I have PPP working over the serial line to a host machine running Linux, and I am busy building other packages I need. I am actually doing much of the development on the empeg itself; I carved out some space on /drive0 and installed a minimal Debian system there so I could build a chrooted environment without touching the /dev/hda1 root filesystem.

Is it possible to develop empeg software on Win32 platform, then transfer the source files to empeg and compile & link it inside empeg?

This would sound easier than doing the development process on I386/Linux environment and cross-compile the ARM executable and then transfer the binary to empeg.

- Kim

You'll have to install a compiler on the empeg first, but yes, that's what I did. You will probably also have to add some swap space since there is only 8MB of RAM.

I also have a cross-compiler under i386 which works, but I found that some things were too difficult to build without being on the target.

Can you tell me where you got your pppd from, and how you got it to work?
I installed one that was inside a redhat rpm, after installing it (and
libpam and libcrypt) it says no ppp support in kernel. Even though I
can see it in the kernel boot messages. I strace'd it (after loading strace
and libnsl), but it doesn't help much.

Paul

I built the Debian ppp package from source, as there was none available for ARM that I could find.

I am putting together a journal of my experience and will be posting a URL soon.