Howto create a driver disk?

[Paul Howarth]

Rainer Koenig wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Problem: We have new PC with SiS 761 chipset that introduces a new SATA
> controller that is acutally not covered by the sata_sis driver that comes
> with any kernel, including the kernels from kernel.org.
> 
> Solution: SIS offers a driver source on their website. If I apply this
> source on a already installed hard disk (on another system that has an
> older SiS chipset) then I can built a kernel, that also starts on the
> new system.
> 
> Remaining problem: Customers that only have the new system and nothing
> else still can't install Fedora Core 4 since the installer fails to
> detect the hard disk. I guess that's the problem described in 
> Bug 160404 (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=160404 ).
> 
> Possible solution: Fedora Core 4 can be installed with the dd paramter
> at boot time, so I need to provide a driver disk. Questions on this:
> 
> 1. Does this driver disk give me the possibility to provide a patched
>    version of sata_sis.ko that is used instead of the version that 
>    comes from the installation DVD? So that then the installer detects
>    my harddisk and installs the patched module as well in the kernel?

Yes.

> 2. If (1) can be answered with "yes" then the really important 
>    question is: How do I create such a driver disk? What do I need
>    for that? How difficult is this process? Are there RPMs with a
>    sort of "driver disk construction kit" available?

There is no kit and virtually no documentation available. However, it's 
do-able. You'll need to build the required module(s) for the FC4 
installer kernel, all arches that you want to support, in a structure 
like this:

2.6.11-1.1369_FC4/i586/sata_sis.ko
2.6.11-1.1369_FC4/i686/sata_sis.ko
2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp/i686/sata_sis.ko

Then make a moduleball:

ls -1 */*/*.ko > modules-list
cpio -o --format=crc < modules-list | gzip -c -9 > modules.cgz

You'll need the following files on the driver disk:

modinfo
modules.cgz
modules.dep
modules.pcimap
pcitable
rhdd

For examples of the format of these files, see my driver disk for the 
Advansys SCSI controller:
http://www.city-fan.org/ftp/contrib/drivers/advansys/

Write that lot to a VFAT format floppy and you're done.

Paul.