The  MGB100_400S07 FW uses 2.4 kernel on SMCWAPS-G. Has some one tried to upgrade the kernel to 2.6.

Most of the development packages that I use in debian complains that the Kernel is too old. Is it hard to upgrade the kernel. Is there a wiki or is there a high probability that I will brick the device

Hello,

I see you are running Debian on a smcswap-g? Could you please enlighten me on how to get the wireless working with WPA/PSK? The wireless connection works very well with Schufti's firmware. I'm running a normal Debian x86 version from built-in disk, so no uClibc version.

Could this rt2500apd binary have anything to do with it?
Readelf tells me it won't run without uClibc, so I put those libraries on the debian partition aswell, and now this program can be executed. It just doesn't seem to do very much...

Is this rt2500 driver module similar with the ralink rt2x00 driver which is available in the Linux 2.6 tree? Then I would be interested in trying to get a bootloader installed wich can boot a newer kernel to make wpa_supplicant work. Did somebody make a howto about something like that by any chance?

I'm a complete newbee, just interested in playing/learning some new stuff, hopefully without bricking my precious little wlan bridge (as it is my laptops only means of communication :-)

Thank you for your time!
Joost de Greef (Berlin)

Kudos!

Your reply made things work here too. I now use iwpriv and udhcpc as you suggested. Still, about half the time the bridge doesn't get an IP it seems. The default dhclient installed by debian doesn't work at all with the kernel provided in Shufti's firmware. I'm going out for parts today to have a look at the serial output.

How did you start kernel 2.6? Do you use redboot/grub or something?
Did you merge the '2 button-pressed==restore firmware' code from the original kernel with your bootloader somehow?

Thanks a lot.
Joost de Greef.

First, know what to expect. your smcswaps-g is a 486 with 32MB ram, which won't make for a very fast machine after you install debian :-)

I'm a newbee too, so i used a newbee method:
- upgrade the firmware to one of Shufti's latest versions with autoinit/autofs support.
- create a root/swap/home partition using the web interface
- dump a debian image onto the home partition (i used one from colinux which was lying around here anyway).
- copy the files from the image to your root directory.
- check if you have all the files required in new_root/dev
after that; chroot new_root bash
- make sure the debian /etc/network/interfaces file is configured
- edit your debian /etc/fstab.
- make a link from sbin/init to autoinit
- install sshd or make sure your telnet accepts logins from root (aptitude should work now)
- exit from the chroot
after that;
- reboot your machine...
- use tune2fs to change your root/home partitions to ext3 (optional ofcourse)
- mkswap your swap partition
- reboot again.

getting the wlan to work properly was a bit tricky, it seems the dhclient which comes with debian requires some extra kernel options, and the wpa/psk settings have to be set in a specific order.

for me, the machine works perfectly as a bridge, but everything else is a little slughish. I'm still trying to find time to figure out which bootloader i should use to start a 'normal' kernel and how to get that bootloader to behave nicely should i want to 'repair' the firmware.
There are some instructions around on this forum on how to make serial port connection, which is a fun project and a serial connection helps should you mess up the network settings (remember to run a getty on ttyS0).

I hope it works for you too!
Joost.

Did you manage?
If not, where did you get stuck?