2.6.27.47: our new retro kernel?

Ah, I was able to compile all of the analog modem drivers ...one of the main reasons for using a retro kernel.

This is quite an exciting exercise, updating this old kernel -- Squashfs4, the latest Aufs2, ext4. It remains to be seen whether it runs error-free though, when I try it out on various hardware.

I have uploaded a PET here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/quirky/pet_packages-quirky/linux_kernel-2.6.27.47-tickless_uniproc-q1.pet

And the sources here:
http://bkhome.org/sources/kernel-2.6.27.47/

However, I thought, if this is to become our long-term retro kernel (assuming of course that it does run reliably, that those patches don't do something strange), then I might as well take one step back and use the older IDE drivers rather than the PATA drivers. So, right now it is recompiling, and I will create another PET.

Then I propose to build a Wary Puppy, based on Xorg 7.3+ and the 2.6.27.47 (IDE) kernel. Support for older hardware has been one of Puppy's strengths, and I see Wary as a continuation of this.

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Comments

Woof and 2.6.27.47
Username: BarryK
Note, don't try to build with this kernel in Woof just yet. I need to fix something in Woof. I'll announce when it's all ready to go. Username: 7 Jun 2010, 9:41
"01651"114.129.167.148'Bring it on!"Kevin Bowers"Barry, you're always coming up with something I need. I just acquired an old custom-built box with an Athlon @ 900MHz and a VIA chipset, it sounds like you're building this Wary just for it!"7 Jun 2010, 9:56"01651"75.104.78.155'Hooray!"Iguleder"Can't wait until Wary is released! No matter what happens with Lucid, 4.4 or any other Puppy, Wary is the successor of 4.3.1 for me. This is the real Puppy 5. By the way, Barry, do you intend to create a separate repo for Wary? I think it might be a good idea, as the experience with ayttm in Quirky proved some things may break because of the different Xorg. Also, if you create such repo, it will allow the community to make drivers that work with 2.6.27.x and host them there, mainly things like GPU drivers. I think Wary should be marketed as the Puppy for old hardware and wide compatibility. I'm pretty sure that if Wary becomes an independent "branch" of Quirky with its own repo for Quirky-incompatible stuff, many people will be thankful. Including me. Thanks for all the hard work, Barry. :)"7 Jun 2010, 17:01"01651"109.66.114.16'Good News"Sage"Barry: both you & Iguleder, [i]inter alia[/i] present an inspired insight. We must stop kiddies (of all ages), esp. from one continent, chasing the tail of the Wintel cartel and the market-driven move to worthless proprietary junk in laptops. Those guys practice leverage on a grand scale destined to destroy the planet as last year's boxes get consigned to landfill. Kick them! Time for decent folks to stand up and tell them we don't want your lousy video chips, Winmodems & co., your flimsy plastic tubs incapable of upgrading, etc. Most punters can be adequately catered for by a mobile phone and a brick (or two!?)dating from half-a-decade ago behind the door, if necessary with a cable into the telly. Surfing and email account for most use, closely followed by digital camera and printing photos. No longer any point in d/l-ing video when you can see it all on iPlayer/OD4/play-it-again-Sam whenever you choose. Almost any old banger can do all that with Puppy. The Laws of Physics tell us that you cannot display 3D on a 2D monitor; Compiz is funny for the first ten minutes, but utterly pointless afterwards. Gamers - buy the real thing: a Sony; forget X-anything, they don't need or deserve encouragement except into liquidation. Time to take stock; use the synapses to realise you've been taken for a ride. Nobody likes to admit they've been a sucker, but you'll feel a whole lot better when you do - and [b]much wealthier[/b], too. Oh yes, and get a proper router or serial modem - it'll pay off in time (some ISPs even give a rebate if you decline their cr*p 'free' nasty little USB devices)."7 Jun 2010, 18:27"01651"92.29.43.37'2.6.27.47 IDE PET"BarryK"This is a PET with the IDE drivers (instead of PATA). I also bumped the ALSA drivers up to the latest (1.0.23): http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/quirky/pet_packages-quirky/linux_kernel-2.6.27.47-tickless_uniproc_ide-q1.pet I'm still working on Woof, fixing it to build properly with this kernel. Username: 7 Jun 2010, 21:15
"01651"114.129.167.148'Terminology"Sage"PATA == IDE == ATA == ATAPI. 18" of your best cabling. Then there's SATA, the thin one..."7 Jun 2010, 21:55"01651"92.29.43.37'P54 wireless firmware"Terrryphi"Hope Wary will include the appropriate P54 wireless driver firmware compatible with kernel 2.6.27. See http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/p54#p54 ."7 Jun 2010, 22:33"01651"93.89.132.150'Running Wary"BarryK"I have done a test build, running it on my laptop. Very nice so far. Terryphi, I grabbed the correct firmware, I'll make sure it is put in. Username: 7 Jun 2010, 23:17
"01651"114.129.167.148'Wary schedule"BarryK"I hope to upload Wary beta1 two days from now. I have to recompile the base packages in T2, as they should be compiled against the 2.6.27.47 headers -- glibc in particular. A couple of little buglets I have found so far. So it should be ok to get it out by Thursday. I'm will be otherwise engaged from Thursday to Monday, so if don't get it out by Thursday then it will have to be Tuesday-ish. Username: 7 Jun 2010, 24:15
"01651"114.129.167.148'OT"Dougal"Barry, you might want to look into this: http://lwn.net/Articles/388889/ It might be useful as a replacement for tmpfs as the top unionfs layer..."7 Jun 2010, 24:37"01651"79.181.37.144'Wary repo"BarryK"[i]By the way, Barry, do you intend to create a separate repo for Wary? I think it might be a good idea, as the experience with ayttm in Quirky proved some things may break because of the different Xorg.[/i] I have setup directory 'pet_packages-wary' at the ibiblio.org Quirky repository. I have setup Woof so that it shares Quirky packages (located in pet_packages-quirky) however looks in pet_packages-wary first -- so any PETs in pet_packages-wary will get selected. That means, for example, if we compile ayttm in Wary and put it into pet_packages-wary, then Woof will use that rather than the Quirky ayttm PET. Username: 8 Jun 2010, 10:39
"01651"114.129.167.148'Great! :)"Iguleder"Barry, that's exactly what I was thinking of ... but what packages go in there? Are you recompiling all Quirky's packages in T2 against the .27 headers or using all latest versions?"8 Jun 2010, 14:16"01651"79.178.127.126'Wary vs Quirky"BarryK"I'm just running T2 again with the same packages as before, as I want to maintain a very high degree of compatibility between Wary and Quirky. Of course, Quirky is built with a lot of PET packages that I compiled in Quirky (residing at pet_packages-quirky). I had previously recompiled in T2 with all the same packages except for Xorg 7.3, and those packages plus the Quirky PETs have been used by Woof to build the Wary that I am running right now. So there is a very high degree of compatibility, it doesn't matter that a package was compiled in Quirky, it still works in Wary -- like SeaMonkey that I'm using now. I haven't tried Ayttm though. So, I don't think much has to go into pet_packages-wary. Username: 8 Jun 2010, 15:53
"01651"114.129.167.148'Retrograde Wary 020"rjbrewer"A weird experiment. In order to get older video players to work in Wary; I did a full install of Wary 020. Then I used a 4.3.1 cd, 2.6.25.16 kernel, and used it to "upgrade" the Wary install, using universal installer. Ended up with a Wary about 60% larger, with the old kernel, that runs the old players. Has a few little quirks, but turned out surprisingly well. Username: 13 Jun 2010, 11:13
"01651"72.128.23.216'Wary 030 running!"Kevin Bowers"Installed Wary 0.3.0 on my Athlon 900 box with FIC-VIA board and a 16GB HD. This is a full HD install on an EXT-4 file system. So far so good, nothing but niggling little problems. Video is S3-Trio 64MB, the XORG wizard had no problems at all with it. Audio is onboard VIA, I didn't even have to configure ALSA. Ethernet is ADMtek NC100 on PCI; SNS worked flawlessly with it. I can't test the Agere/Lucent analog modem since I no longer have a dialup account but Wary recognizes it and talks to it, received its secondary string. Numlockx installed and works, as did SFS-installer. I was hoping that the earlier kernel would enable XMMS and/or xnview 1.70 to run on it. No such luck, both installed (with the help of Dotpup-handler and puppybasic) but will not run. Missing dependencies? No way I know to check, apparently dotpup-handler doesn't notify the PET package manager of its installs so it doesn't know they are there. Altogether we seem fast and stable even on this hardware, which as I recall was troublesome even on Windows 9X way back when. I remember seeing software that carried a warning that it wouldn't run on VIA boards!"14 Jun 2010, 6:39"01651"75.104.78.155'

Tags: puppy