[hsflinux] kernel requirements

[Sidik Isani]

Hello -

  Even if you are familiar with kernel hacking, you may want/need
  Marc's help before attempting to debug this driver.  The parts
  I had trouble with (see below) are not in the open source, and
  it was a little painful finding the problem without help.

  If modprobe is segfaulting, try putting "gcc" and "cc" as symlinks
  pointing to the version of gcc that was used to build *your kernel*.
  (look in /proc/version.)  This must match.  Marc, it looks like you've
  struggled with the kgcc/gcc issue before and just decided to build
  with "gcc".  You might look at way NVidia has done, which is simply
  issue a warning telling people to choose the right gcc if "gcc -v"
  doesn't match /proc/version.  Adding that won't break anything you
  already have.

  In my case, I finally got the driver working, with these things to note:

  o I run SGI XFS-1.1 kernel on a Sony Vaio SR17.

  o ACPI support is *not* needed on this model (though it may be
    if you told the BIOS that you want the OS doing power management.)

  o The driver seems to work just fine with DEVFS.  The lines which
    the install script adds to /etc/devfsd.conf may crash devfsd's
    older than a few months or so.  So upgrade devfsd first, or back
    up your devfsd.conf!

  o SGI wants me to use gcc-2.91.66/egcs-1.1.2, so the module must be
    compiled with the same.  It works, but you have to get rid of the
    "-fcheck-new -fno-rtii" options which 2.91 doesn't know about.

  o CONFIG_MODVERSIONS is checked but should not be required. (.tar.gz)

  o CONFIG_KMOD is not checked but *is* apparently required.

  Because of this last point, the driver was dying with non-descriptive
  errors at modprobe time.  Marc, do you check the result of
  request_module()?  For my particular modem, it seems to have been
  trying to load hsf_basic2.   Loading that first, manually gets
  everything working, without adding kmod (which is causes me other
  problems.)

  Well, merci beaucoup for the driver!  I still wish Sony had
  continued putting "regular" modems in the Vaios :-(

Be seeing you,

- Sidik