[Ltsp-announce] New LTSP Kernel pkg and wireless-ltsp available

[<ja...@Mc...>]

Late Sunday night, I put a new LTSP kernel package
on the LTSP download page.  This was labeled ltsp_kernel_3.0.2.
It had one small problem tho, the initrd was missing the hostname
command.  This caused the workstation to be unable to get
the correct entries from the lts.conf file.

So, late last night, I released ltsp_kernel_3.0.3, which does
have the hostname command.  Sorry for any inconvenience this
may have caused people who got the bad package.  According to
the Sourceforge stats, it was only 6 people.

Now, for the good news:

1)  The new kernel package contains some fixes to the /linuxrc
    script that will allow any IO or IRQ options to always be
    passed to the NIC module.  Previously, only a few select
    NIC modules would get the information.

2)  I changed the /linuxrc script to use modprobe instead of insmod.
    This causes it to automatically figure out if the 8390.o module
    is required.  Previously, it was only loaded for a few select
    NIC modules.

3)  WIRELESS !!!  Yes, that's right, we now support wireless LTSP
    cards.  Actually, not with this kernel pkg, but with the
    wireless-ltsp package that is also available for download.
    I had to build a new kernel for PCMCIA support, so I decided
    it was a good time to release the new standard kernel as
    well.

4)  A new ltsp_initrd_kit is also available, which contains the
    compiled kernels and the initrd images so you can piece them
    together as you wish, for PXE booting or other booting methods.
    And, I've included the NFS-swap patch and the LPP patch.    


As a side benefit to adding support for wireless cards, we also
now have support for any PCMCIA/Cardbus ethernet cards (wired)
as well.  When I say 'any', I mean if it is supported by the
pcmcia-cs-3.1.33 package in Linux.

But, keep in mind, we are not loading the kernel via the network.
Etherboot doesn't (yet) support pcmcia cards.  So, you need to
load the kernel locally.  That is, from floppy disk, hard disk or
flash disk.  Included in the wireless-ltsp package is a floppy
image that can be dd'ed directly to a floppy.

If you want to know how to put the kernel and initrd on a flash
disk, please contact me, either via email or on the #ltsp IRC
channel.

Also, the kernel version is still 2.4.9.  The reason for that
is that is the only version for which there is a NFS-Swap patch
and the LPP patch.  As soon as patches for the 2.4.18 kernels
become available, I'll work on updating to that version.


So, the new packages are:

  ltsp_kernel-3.0.2-0.i386.rpm
  ltsp_kernel-3.0.2.i386.tgz
  ltsp_initrd_kit-3.0.3.i386.tgz
  wireless_ltsp-3.0.2-i386.tgz


So, have fun with the new stuff.

Jim McQuillan
ja...@Lt...