Re: [coLinux-users] Introduction and a few questions

[Henry N. <Hen...@Ar...>]

Hello Zachary,

> Hello,
>      First a few words of introduction on my part: I'm a blind computer
> user who has had an interest in Linux ever since I first found out about
> it some six or so years back.
> The main problem I've had with Linux is that for the most part the
> hardware I have doesn't make using speech synthesizers and the like to
> do independant installations very easy.
> My computer doesn't come with a serial port--and the only synthesizer I
> have that would let me do that needs one.  USB to serial doesn't seem to
> work, etc.  I settled on using CoLinux and using my existing Windows
> screen reader with the NT console--for some reason the FLTK doesn't work
> so well with it, I don't know why.

NT console is a real console with text only output.  Copy and paste 
works directly from Windows.  All other programs with copy & paste can 
read the text from this console.

The FLTK console is a graphic application with a drawed text in the 
client area.  That's why you can not copy and past, and no put it to a 
synthesizer.

>      Now to my questions...I have taken a real liking to ArchLinux: it's
> simple, and very useable for what I'd like so far.  
> However, the problem comes when upgrading: the latest upgrades recommend
> that I use kernel 2.6.17 to take advantage of UDev support.  I can work
> around this, but really I wonder if there's an advantage to using it?

The image file for ArchLinux was modifired to run without UDev.  There 
exist a fallback for coLinux kernels without UDev.  I can not say about 
it's using Udev or not.  I have tested the ArchLinux image with coLinux 
Kernel 2.6.17, it's running nice for my basics test.  The ArchLinux 
image file is indipend from coLinux version and should run with all 
known coLinux kernels 2.6

With Udev the directory /dev/ has more entries, I'm afraid.  The 
fallback creates only the most wanted devices tty*, cofs*, null, zero 
and some other basics.

> If so...Is it possible to use 2.6.18 with CoLinux, and if that's
> possible how would I compile it, and patch it?  Would an initrd be
> enough?

After anybody would upgrade our coLinux kernel patches from 2.6.17 to 
2.6.18, than a new file vmlinux-modules.tar.gz would enought.  Initrd 
will install the modules from that file.

CoLinux has very hard changes on the kernel low level memory mamagment, 
so it's not easy to upgrade, and you can not use an older patch for 
newer kernel.

-- 
Henry