Repartitioning, p.3
Last weekend, I have successfully changed my filesystem to – I wouldn’t have guessed it – Reiser4! Seems stable enough so far, and feels quicker too. Plus there’s the great feeling you get after the triumphant FS change and kernel reconfig/compile. Once again, just like 5-6 years ago when I used to be working fulltime on Linux, I have customized my own kernel (well, semi-customized).
I have also learned so much stuff about the Ubuntu architecture in the process. I would say, as a customizable suite with tools developed to make it as easy as possible (e.g. make-kpkg is godsend! I should have used Debian from the get-go) and best drivers support, nothing beats Ubuntu. (For the record, I’m using an Ubuntu variant, Xubuntu.)
Some notes to self when customizing kernels from the Ubuntu kernel-source on my laptop (HP DV6000t):
- Compile/install the nvidia driver module separately, AFTER installing the kernel. Don’t build the module with the kernel – for some reason it fails to load.
- Make a symlink of /lib/firmware/
to /lib/firmware/ , and same with the ipw3945d daemon. Not doing these causes the wifi (Intel, ipw3945) to fail. I think this is because the linux-restricted-drivers package has the extra tools/libs needed to load wifi, but the package tends to install these tools in kernel version-specific folders and filenames.
My current project is building a kernel for music production. For improved latency I will need most importantly the realtime-preempt kernel patch by Ingo Molnar that is modified for Ubuntu kernels. So far I could not find this, so I am now experimenting with the realtime-lsm module (which is available) and with setting the system timer to 1000MHz from the default 250MHz. First objective: get my MIDI/USB keyboard to work with Rosegarden with minimum lag.
Yes, I have decided to go all-out open source for music. So long, Windows! (Except for my precious games ;D)
July 4th, 2007 at 9:25 am
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmuah!