[Nottingham] Libranet and Win4Lin

[Michael Leuty]

First, I'm sorry that I didn't make it to the meet last week. My missus 
is not altogether happy about the amount of time I spend upstairs with 
my computer and at church on the organ, and if she found out I had 
spent an evening with you lot my life would not have been worth living.  
;-)

You may remember that I had some trouble with my motherboard. This was 
duly replaced, but I then couldn't get Mandrake to work with the new 
motherboard, my old nVIDIA card and the 3D nvidia driver. Having read 
an encouraging review about Libranet, I have now installed that on my 
system. So, rather sooner than expected, I find myself running Debian. 
I am most impressed by Libranet, and consider the $65 well spent in 
helping a newbie like me to install and configure the system. This is 
the most functional installation of GNU/Linux I have ever had: even 
KPilot works. (I can see you hardened Deb-heads nodding sagely...)

My problem now is that I wish to patch the kernel in order to install 
Win4Lin 5.0. (Sorry chaps, but there is some M$ software I need to 
run.) I would welcome a little hand-holding over this procedure.

Running uname -sr gives: Linux 2.4.21

The Win4Lin site (www.netraverse.com) proposes two patch files:
mki-adapter.patch
Kernel-Win4Lin3-2.4.21.patch
These are text files with a load of what looks like source code to me.

The Libranet support pages give the following advice on patching:

1. From the Libranet Adminmenu select the option to recompile the 
kernel. The kernel source will be unpacked and you will be presented 
with a configuration screen. Quit the configuration screen, then quit 
the kernel compilation.
2. Download the kernel patch that you want to apply. For example the -ac 
kernel patches from kernel.org. (filename /tmp/patch-2.4.20-ac2.gz)
3. Apply the patch by running the following commands as root:
      cd /usr/src/linux
      zcat /tmp/patch-2.4.20-ac2.gz | patch -p1
If the patch name ends in .bz2 then use the command bzcat instead of 
zcat above.
4. From the Libranet Adminmenu select the option to recompile the 
kernel. This time adjust the kernel configuration if necessary, and 
complete the kernel compilation. The new patched kernel will be 
installed once the compile is complete.
If the new kernel does not boot correctly, you can reboot your system 
using the "old" kernel entry in the GRUB boot menu.

It seems to me that I should copy the two patch files to /tmp and then 
(as root) run:

cd /usr/src/linux
cat /tmp/mki-adapter.patch
cat /tmp/Kernel-Win4Lin3-2.4.21.patch

(I am assuming it should be cat and not zcat as the files are not 
zipped.)

...and then recompile as directed.


Does this sound about right to you?

(Knowing the amazing response and helpfulness of this list, I shall now 
go to Sainsburys to buy the Sunday roast and expect the answer on my 
return. Unless you've all gone down the pub...)

In any case, all advice gratefully received.

-- 
Michael Leuty