The NCCP software environment - Debian install and prepare

The NCCP software architecture is not so complicated. It has an operating system, few drivers and the user software. In this post I will explain what kind of operating system I choose and show how it is configured. Everything is basic, nothing is extra.

First of all, I chose the Debian Squeeze version with the actually default kernel (for my hardware) and this is the 2.6.32-5-486.

Let's go, do it:

1. Download the Debian NetInstall CD image from here. (Direct link to the i386 iso file.)
2. Burn to a CD
3. Boot up the hardware from the CD. (Need to play a little bit in the BIOS to set the first boot device to the CD-ROM)
4. Set up the default system.

Do not forget to enable the root user during the installation process and create a standard user as well. 

Of course — because this is a net(work) installation, it needs a living internet access. I just connected to my home's rooter with a LAN cable. Up to the internet connection's speed, the network install takes a half an hour.

You could ask why I choose the network install for my setup. Because I always want to reduce the amount of computer components on my desk. This tiny VIA board is nice and small and not so nice looking together with an 1€ CD-ROM driver on its side. (Did I told already all of my components are low-cost stuffs?) This old CD drive is loud and always shaking my desk when it needs to read something from the disk. That's why I decided to use as less as need.

After the basic Debian setup, need to tune a little bit the system to be ready to set the kernel source dependencies and compile the driver for the Sitecom USB WiFi adapter.

1. Download and install Midnight Commander
2. Download and install ssh
3. Download the kernel-package
4. Download the kernel source for the actual kernel
5. Download and install the kernel headers (They are important to build any driver.)

# apt-get update

# apt-get install mc

# apt-get install ssh
# apt-get install kernel-package

If you did not select during the installation add contrib and non-free to your source.list file. This file is in the /etc/apt/ directory of the root filesystem. Here is mine:

# 
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 6.0.3 _Squeeze_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20111008-19:55]/ squeeze main
#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 6.0.3 _Squeeze_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20111008-19:55]/ squeeze main


deb http://debian.tu-bs.de/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb-src http://debian.tu-bs.de/debian/ squeeze main 


deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main


# squeeze-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://debian.tu-bs.de/debian/ squeeze-updates main
deb-src http://debian.tu-bs.de/debian/ squeeze-updates main



To have a "ready" kernel sources and headers need to do this few steps.
Download the kernel headers and source packages:

# apt-get install linux-source-2.6.32

# apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.32-5-486

Unpack it:

# cd /usr/src

# tar -xjvf linux-source-2.6.32.tar.bz2

Install the correct config-file:

# cd linux-source-2.6.32

# cp /boot/config-2.6.32-5-486 .config

Generate dependencies and Makefiles:

# make-kpkg --append-to-version "-5-486" --revision 2.6.32-5 --config old configure

Check build link:

# rm -f /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-486/build 

# ln -s /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.32 /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-486/build
Most drivers will use the build link to find the correct kernel source tree for include files and Makefiles.

With this in place many drivers can be installed with a simple “make install”.

Very big thanks to here and here.

Because I have not so much free space on my CF card, I decided to delete all of the unnecessary files and packages:

# cd /usr/src

# rm linux-source-2.6.32.tar.bz2

# apt-get clean

Two usefull commands are the df and the free.