Hello,

I have installed the kernel image version 2.6.12-1-686 from unstable on my Debian laptop a few weeks ago. In order to compile the madwifi module, I need the kernel sources and am instructed to use the command

make-kpkg --append-to-version "-1-686" --revision 2.x.y-z --config old configure

from within /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12

I have two questions:

1) Shouldn't the command say "--config oldconfig" instead of "--config old"?

2) The kernel source package is now version 2.6.12-5 and no longer 2.6.12-1. When running the above command, I obtain a number of warnings saying

"warning: pointer targets in passing argument 1 of 'strtol' differ in signedness"

(which occurs for a bunch of files and a bunch of different functions). Is this due to the differing kernel revision number? If so, is kernel-source-2.6.12-1 still available? I also see a package names linux-tree-2.6.12. Is that what I should be using instead?

I could, of course, install kernel-image-2.6.12-5, but recompiling and reinstalling the Nvidia drivers is a bit of a pain, so I was trying to avoid it.

Thanks in advance

Did you add the madwifi module using make menuconfig (or xconfig or whatever)? You need to do that first if you want the module to be available after compiling your kernel (assuming that it is not already available). You can take a look here:

Guide to 2.6 kernel compile

If you already have the kernel-source and you don't care about having a deb logo on bootup, you can make things easy and skip to step 6. Just change 2.6.7 to 2.6.12 and ignore the steps about boot logo. Also skip all but the first part of step 9.

I got a lot of warning messages about signdedness the last couple times I recompiled also (2.6.11). But everything seems to be working fine. Not sure what the errors were about. Maybe someone here knows.

btw, step 9 takes care of your config issue.

ssfrstlstnm,

Thanks much. I ignored the warnings, compiled madwifi, inserted the module and all works fantastically, out of the box.

If anyone here knows why we get those warnings and what the difference between the linux-source and linux-tree packages is, I'll be very pleased to know.

The linux or kernel-tree package includes not only the kernel source, but also the applicable Debian kernel/linux-patches.