imposible to compile compat-wireless

Hi, I'm an electronic enginiering student. I've recently switched from Archlinux to SL looking for the red hat linux compatibility of many comertial software. I installed SL6 on an eeepc 1005HA. My wifi driver is the ath9k, which s loaded out-fo-the-box. But, as in Debian squeeze, it seems to be an old version, very slow. In debian I just compiled the the compat-wireless package and loaded the new module to have it working with perfect performance. But here I'm not able to do so. In order to compile it i installed bin-utils by doing "yum goupinstall "development tools" I also tried to install kernel-headers but it looked ok. This is what i get when i try to compile.

Sorry but the output is in spanish, any way to get it in english?
I really don't know what going wrong. Well let me thank you in adveance for your time and help.

Hi,
it complains about some incompatibilities between SL 2.6.32 kernel sources and the wireless compat sources that is supposed to be for 2.6.33. You can even see the file names and row numbers in files that have conflict.

This is question for some programmer / debugger, cant help with this i'm afraid ...

cheers,

Thank you very much, i doesn't let me compile the wired driver to, i'll try to reinstall and compile it without updating the system. One never really knows what is the good combination of factors XD.

Without knowing the details of what you are trying to build, but looking at the output, i would check config.mk first. I guess you have to tweak it before you build the drivers.

I tried to compile this driver on my home desktop with SL 6.1, just for fun and it ends in same way. Problem is it looks for some functions in kernel headers, but, since these are headers comming with 2.6.32xxx, it simply says, it is different.

To solve this, i can see 2 ways:
- check the source files of the compat wireless - more likely question for developer, or skilled programmer, if you're neither, i'd try to ask on developer forum of the compat wireless and post this problem there
- or install nonstandard kernel to your SL 6 directly from kernel.org, e.g. install and run 2.6.36 vanilla kernel and install compat wireless drivers with corresponding number

either is not that easy to do (well maybe good programmer could fix it in no time)
In my case, if i wanted this 'speed up' in driver, i'd take option 2, which is doable for me, since i cant fix source....

cheeers,

Just out of curiosity i tried to build the driver (from linuxwireless.org: http://www.orbit-lab.org/kernel/compat-wireless-2.6-stable/v2.6.32/compat-wireless-2.6.32.16.tar.bz2). It failed at the end:

From looking at the site, i suppose you need the driver for the 'older stable release' kernel version 2.6.32.

Since the hardware is not available here anyway, i stopped going any further.

Hi, In theory, in the README file says it should work on any kernel above 2.6.24 and I have 2.6.32.

I reinstalled but I can't try to compile it because I'm not able to to do yum groupinstall "development tools" because in gets to slow and ends up failing.
I'll try to download the rpm's of make, gcc, linix-headers and se what happens.

It seems there is a compat-wireless package for RHEL6 here:
http://people.redhat.com/sgruszka/compat-wireless-next/RHEL6/
Try installing that one, since it's for RHEL6 it should also work with SL6.

Here is the related web page:
http://people.redhat.com/sgruszka/compat_wireless.html

Thank you very much.
I added the sugested repositories in the link given (having to change the path to point to RHEL6) and installed kmod-compat-wireless and kmod-compat-wireless-next, and it is still slow like hell. Any other piece of advice??

Maybe try contacting the author of those packages:
Stanislaw Gruszka: sgruszka at redhat.com

Mod's edit: edited the mailaddress

Tux99's comment to Mod's edit: I did consider disguising that email address, but it's already all over google (that's how I found it), so being here won't make any difference to the spam load it certainly already gets (it's a work email anyway, not a private one, and I would expect that redhat has good spam filters like most big companies).

Of course I didn't check if it is already available on the internet.
Nevertheless, I consider it to be polite to disguise it anyway

I'll try not to bother him unless it is absolutly necessary. Today i'll give a try to compile form a new instalation now from dvd and with the system updated from a lan, not from the wifi.
PD: Today at the university i gave a try to SL 5 in the microelectronic design lab and I liked, I'm looking forward having a full working setup on my netbook.

HI! Today I got a diferent error:

uname -r outputs 2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.i686

and ls -la /lib/modules/2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.i686/

Where
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 49 sep 21 18:34 build -> ../../../usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.i686
is in red.
In /usr/kernels/ i onli have 2.6.32-131.12.1.el6.i686 so I supose that i need to get the kernel sources of the 2.6.32-131.0.15.el6.i686 version, any idea of how to get it?
Thank you very much
Thanks

When building kernel modules the kernel source must match the currently installed and active kernel.


Apart from that I very much doubt that your new attempt will succeed. If you look at the source rpm from Stanislaw you will notice that he uses a rather big patch file to get the original code to build. This means the original code won't build on RHEL6/SL6 without patches.

I solved the kernel issue but when i compile gives the same error as the begining. I'm starting to think that it is imposible.

Finally a compiled it! i just used a version for this kernel, but it must be and old one because the performance is still very poor.

Exactly. If you look for the new driver feature, you need newer source, if you compile newer source, it wont compile .... etc :-)
Anyway, have you thought about compiling vanilla kernel and then on top of it this driver? It would mean heavy customization, but i'd do it if i wanted that speed up as much as you ...

cheers,