This weekend i tried to compile a patched 2.6.35 kernel and wanted to install this on multiple machines. But it kept failing when the .deb files were created.
make-kpkg kept complaining that the kernel version, 2.6.35-rbd+ was not in the “control info”.
After some searching i found out this was due to CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO not being set.
Setting this to ‘y’ solved it for me, now my kernel compiled and got packed the way it should.
Last november i bought a Noka N900, the reason for my purchase was because it ran Maemo which gave me the freedom to do with my phone whatever i wanted to (with some limitations ofcourse 😉 ).
I’ve been using my N900 intensive since then, using it the whole day to keep up to date with my work, manage some servers through SSH and keep in touch with Jabber Instant Messaging.
Really, the N900 is a great phone and even better when you like Linux as much as i do.
But there was a downside…. A few weeks ago (half April) my phone started to complain that my memory was full, so i couldn’t receive any more IM’s or SMS’s. When i opened a terminal and did a “df -h” it showed me that i was only using 23% of the internal memory. A reboot solved it, so i guessed it was a bug somewhere.
After a few days the phone started to reboot itself and kept complaining whenever i wanted to save something to the internal MMC memory, so i opened up a terminal and typed “dmesg”, well, then i knew what was wrong: The internal MMC memory was broken.
So i started to search the web and i found this thread: talk.maemo.org
It seemed i wasn’t the only one! I contacted Nokia (since i bought the phone from them directly) and they told me i could return it to “BelCompany” (A Dutch phone store) which would then return it for me to the Nokia Service Center.
And so they did.. After a week i got my phone back with the message: Software reprogrammed
Well, i didn’t think that would fix it and it didn’t. After 5 minutes of usage i opened a terminal again and i saw the kernel spitting out errors again about mmcblk0p2. So i went back to “BelCompany” and they returned it again to Nokia.
Guess what? I got my phone back again with the same message and it is still broken!
So i got a broken phone back from the repair center for the second time! I brought the phone back to “BelCompany” again and they urged Nokia to replace my phone with a new N900.
Nokia, shame on you! When i returned my phone to the Nokia service center i attached 3 A4’s with error message from the phone and ways you could reproduce the problem, but in stead you just reprogrammed the MMC and sent it back to me again. Really not the way to treat people when they pay EUR 599,00 for a phone!
To be continued..
For a specific system i wanted maximum performance, so i tried of turning the journaling on my ext4 device.
It took me some time to find out how, so here is a small howto:
1. Unmount your EXT4 filesystem
2. tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/sdX
3. mount your filesystem again.
And voila! You have an ext4 filesystem without a journal.
Note: This works if you have a kernel newer then 2.6.28!