5. Hardware and kernel

5.1. Setup

This is a description of the salient features of the setup used to develop the procedures described below. All the procedures have been tried and tested, also for Linux-2.6. The screen-like displays are precise copies of what appeared on my screen.

5.2. Kernel options

It is uncertain if USB-support is sufficient in kernels earlier than 2.4.xx. The following support, relevant to this document, was compiled into the kernel. A modular approach may also be followed.

5.2.1. SCSI support

  • SCSI support (CONFIG_SCSI scsi_mod.o)
  • SCSI disk support (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD sd_mod.o)

5.2.2. File systems

  • DOS FAT fs support (CONFIG_FAT_FS fat.o)
  • MSDOS fs support (CONFIG_MSDOS_FS msdos.o)
  • VFAT (Windows 95) fs support (CONFIG_VFAT_FS vfat.o)
  • /proc filesystem (CONFIG_PROC_FS)
  • Second extended fs support (ext2fs) (CONFIG_EXT2_FS ext2.o)

5.2.3. USB support

  • Support for USB (CONFIG_USB usbcore.o)
  • Preliminary USB device filesystem (CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS)
  • USB Mass Storage support (CONFIG_USB_STORAGE usb-storage.o)

5.3. Notes

In the lists above the entities in uppercase refer to the variable names to be found in the .config file in the upper level directory of the kernel source (/usr/src/linux/). The entities xxx.o refer to the modules created when a modular approach is followed. When there is no reference to a module, the option can only be hard-compiled into the kernel.

Different kernel versions may have different indications of options when, for example, make menuconfig or make xconfig are run. Variables such as CONFIG_USB, which can be gleaned from the various help options, may be a more reliable indication.

Very recent Linux distributions such as RedHat and SuSE probably have the appropriate kernel options compiled in.

Under USB-support, options for a number of digital cameras are available.

Please consult the relevant texts as set out in Section 4 if you consider (re)compiling your kernel.