[coLinux-users] using 2.6 kernels, moving to latest coLinux snapshot, etc.

[Joe W. <sl...@bl...>]

Dear fellow coLinux users,

I have a few questions regarding using 2.6 kernels and moving to the
latest coLinux snapshots.  I'm using coLinux 0.6.1 right now.

* I am considering upgrading before the next official release to solve
  the various problems with the microseconds returned by gettimeofday.

  Sometimes gettimeofday seems to just work, but at other times the
  microseconds are not a number from 0 to 999999.  Needless to say,
  this causes trouble for some software.  "make" complains a lot when
  I am installing software (I use Gentoo), although this problem seems
  innocuous when compiling software from distributions.  Emacs is
  fairly badly hit by the bad microseconds, with frequent errors while
  waiting for input.  The TRAMP Emacs subsystem (for remote file
  access) is crippled by bad microseconds although I was able to work
  around this by putting a wrapper around Emacs's current-time
  function that replaced the microseconds by 0.  Firefox starts
  spinning and using all the CPU when the microseconds go below -21
  minutes.

  I've seen a number of different bad behaviors of the microseconds.
  Sometimes, the sum of the microseconds and the seconds seems to be
  the correct time, although the microseconds are wildly out of the
  allowed range and hover around some very negative number.
  Sometimes, the seconds field seems to be correct but the
  microseconds fail to wrap properly, going up to perhaps 1 or 2
  minutes and then when they wrap starting from about -1 or -2
  minutes.  Sometimes the gettimeofday results seem to return to
  normal for extended periods.

  Does the 2004-07-10 snapshot fix all of the known problems with
  microseconds returned by gettimeofday (especially on Windows XP
  SP1, which I am using)?

  I noticed from an earlier message that there is a build of the
  2004-07-19 version from the monotone repository available at
  <URL:http://firechief.dyndns.org/colinux/>.  Does this version fix
  the problems?

  Is there any good prediction on when there will be an official
  coLinux 0.6.2 release?  If it is in the next 2 weeks, then I am
  better waiting for it, but otherwise I want to consider using a
  development snapshot.

* Can I run both the old and new coLinux at the same time so that I
  don't have to shut down my working coLinux to test out the new one?
  I think this doesn't work because I can't have both versions of the
  Windows driver for coLinux installed at the same time.  Am I right?

* I am having trouble understanding just what I need to do to upgrade
  my current coLinux root partition to be usable with the post-0.6.1
  coLinux and 2.6 Linux kernel.  I found the instructions on the
  coLinux wiki to be confusing.

  I'm running Gentoo based on the pre-built 2GB Gentoo root partition
  available from the coLinux web site.  I have done "emerge
  module-init-tools".  I have done "mknod /dev/codb/X b 117 X" for X
  from 0 through 31.

  Is this enough?  Will the new coLinux with the new kernel just
  simply work?

  Why do the new /dev/cobd/X files need to exist?  What software
  depends on them being in that location vs. the old location?  As far
  as I can understand, the coLinux-adapted kernel just knows about the
  major number 117 and couldn't care less what names the devices have
  in the file system.  The only place that I know of that cares about
  the names is /etc/fstab.  So why can't I just continue using the old
  names?  The advice on the wiki does not explain this.

* What is relationship between the files in /lib/modules/2.4.24-co in
  the pre-built 2GB Gentoo root partition and the contents of
  vmlinux-modules.tar.gz that comes with coLinux 0.6.1?  There are
  only two .o files with names in common and they differ.  Otherwise,
  the modules in vmlinux-modules.tar.gz seem to be a nearly completely
  different set from the modules in /lib/modules/2.4.24-co.

  Are the ones in vmlinux-modules.tar.gz supposed to be loaded at boot
  time (perhaps via initrd?) and the others are for later?  Also, why
  are the Linux files in /lib/modules/2.4.24-co and not
  /lib/modules/2.4.24-co-0.6.1 (which would seem to be the place they
  should be based on a page on the wiki).

* When I emerged module-init-tools, it did not create an
  /etc/modprobe.conf file from my existing /etc/modules.conf file.  Am
  I supposed to run generate-modprobe.conf or
  modules.conf2modprobe.conf?

  Do I need to run depmod at some point?  Or will this happen
  automatically?

* At gmane.org, the coLinux mailing lists are archived and they have
  inadequate concealment of addresses.  It is too easy for spammers to
  automatically harvest addresses of the form "<MBOX <at> DOMAIN>".
  So I am sending this message using an obfuscated address for myself.
  I had to create an extra mailing address for myself and subscribe it
  to the mailing list just for this purpose because the sourceforge
  mailing list system rejected my message when I just used a bogus
  return address.  It would be nice if the archivers at gmane.org
  didn't make this necessary.

Thanks for any helpful information any of you can give me!

-- 
Joe Wells