So, the second major upgrade that needed to be done was to my AMD64 desktop. This served as my mail server, and a few other bits, for a while, but obviously had to give up that role when I moved into the new house (due to not having an internet connection there!).
Obviously, nothing is ever easy! When I plugged in the ADSL modem upstairs, I realised that our upstairs phone port doesn’t work! So, the ADSL modem had to sit downstairs. Of course, the desktop is upstairs in the office, with no wireless card!
So, first thing to do was to get a wireless adaptor for it. I took a quick look online, and spotted mention of a Belkin G USB wireless adaptor that I had seen in a local PC shop. So I bought this one. A bit of further investigation showed an update to the zd1211rw module in kernel 2.6.19 to support this device. The kernel in Etch is 2.6.18, so didn’t support the device. It’s an easy fix though – just grab the kernel source, and add the following to drivers/net/wireless/zd1211rw/zd_usb.c :
{ USB_DEVICE(0x050d, 0x705c), .driver_info = DEVICE_ZD1211B }
Then recompile this module and copy it into
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/zd1211rw
(don’t forget to backup the one that’s there already), and run
depmod -a
Loading this module should then pick up on the Belkin USB wireless adaptor.
Other than this minor problem, the upgrade went smoothly, and the AMD64 is now happily running Etch with no problems.
