[arch-general] PCMCIA Kernel 2.6

[Thomas Bächler]

Am 14.07.2010 17:39, schrieb Nilesh Govindarajan:
> I can't use arch kernel because its too big for my diskless client.

Okay.

> Further, I don't see any PCMCIA option while compiling kernel 2.6

They are there. More below.

> I tried kernel 2.4 also, it has the exact driver for my card, but then
> glibc complains. Later I tried to compile glib with
> --enable-kernel=2.4, won't compile.

You would need a very ancient glibc, version 2.2 or older iirc. Even if
you could glibc going, Arch Linux depends on Linux 2.6 in so many
places, 2.4 simply won't do it.

> So the only way out for me seems kernel 2.6
> Could anyone provide me more info on compiling PCMCIA drivers right
> inside vmlinuz image?
> If not inside vmlinuz, with initrd.

First, we need to clarify a few things: There are (16 Bit) PCMCIA cards
and (32 Bit) CardBus cards (which are often referred to as PCMCIA, too).
(I don't know if all the terminology is correct, please correct me if I
am wrong)

The PCMCIA variants require special drivers (they usually have 'cs' in
their name) and need initialization from userspace - this initialization
is done automatically by udev. However, these cards will not work
without initramfs, as the kernel cannot initialize them on its own.

The CardBus variants show up in the system as normal PCI cards and use
the same drivers as their PCI counterparts. They work out of the box and
you should be able to use them for booting without initramfs.

We first need to find out which one you have - the first variant will
show up in lspcmcia, the second one in lspci, but not in lspcmcia.

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