slackware10.0 + hostap driver

[G.W. Haywood]

Hi there,

On Fri, 6 Jan 2006 Kevin.McGrath wrote:

> slackware version 10.0, got a prism chipset PCMCIA 802.11 card, and
> attempting to install the hostap driver, however the compilation errors
> ...
> root at node5:~/hostap-driver-0.4.7# make
>
> Makefile:28: /lib/modules/2.4.26/build/.config: No such file or directory

Several problems here.

1.  Don't use Slackware 10.0 when there's a much more secure release
available, which includes a much more recent kernel and also HostAP in
the kernel source tree.  Then get the latest stable kernel source from
http://www.kernel.org/ and use that instead of the one supplied with
your Slackware distribution.

2.  In general, don't 'make' as root.  Use an ordinary account for the
sources (I use /home/ged/src/...) and build the packages (usually you
do something like './configure' and then 'make') using that account.
Then su to root just to do the 'make install' step.

3.  Your error message says specifically that the file '.config' is
missing which could mean that the whole tree is missing.  Have you
ever built the Linux kernel?  If not I suggest you start by doing that.
It's a bit confusing at first, but a lot of fun and once you've got the
hang of it you'll have learned a lot about it.  Here's my directory:

hurricane:~$ >>> ls -lrt /lib/modules/2.4.31-hurricane
total 78
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           36 Dec 31 19:06 build -> /home/ged/src/linux-2.4.31-hurricane/
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          808 Dec 31 19:06 pcmcia/
drwxr-xr-x    8 root     root          192 Jan  2 15:16 kernel/
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        18989 Jan  2 15:16 modules.usbmap
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           24 Jan  2 15:16 modules.pnpbiosmap
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        15191 Jan  2 15:16 modules.pcimap
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           29 Jan  2 15:16 modules.parportmap
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          738 Jan  2 15:16 modules.isapnpmap
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           73 Jan  2 15:16 modules.ieee1394map
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         1781 Jan  2 15:16 modules.generic_string
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        18122 Jan  2 15:16 modules.dep

As you can see, the file '.config' is in fact in the kernel source
tree and 'build' is just a symbolic link to that tree.  In the example
above I happened to be cross-compiling a kernel for another machine
from the same sources as well as one for the current host which is why
the source tree is labelled with the hostname.  Don't worry about that,
just call your kernel tree the default linux-2.4.32 (or whatever you
get when you download the latest one).

4.  When you do build a kernel, use 'make menuconfig'.  You will need
to have a good look around the menu structure to familiarize yourself
with the hundreds of options available to you, but things will start
to fall into place when you do gain that familiarity.

5. Contact me off-list if you get in over your head.

73,
Ged.