XFree86

Upgrading to a 2.4 kernel

A page that I found recommends installing the spicctrl and sjog packages to get control over the LCD brightness and JogDial.

You’ll need to install the ACPI patches, and the ACPI daemon. Grab the patches from here, and apply them to the kernel:

First, you’ll need to recompile your kernel, with the following options:

Note: Caoilte wrote this. I’ve not had a chance to check it yet.

To get the DVD-ROM drive working, you’ll need to compile your kernel with the following options:

Because the DVD-ROM drive supplied with the SRX87 is Firewire, and is not supported by the standard Debian boot images, you’ll need to use network booting (using PXE) to get it going. This page has some instructions for installing Debian in this manner.

Note: This is a preliminary version of this document. I’ve not fully verified that the stuff in here works.

Debian provides a powerful utility called make-kpkg for compiling your own custom kernels. It integrates tightly with dpkg by making .deb files and you can even use this to prepare your kernel image on a faster system. Later on it will make complex operations, such as compiling in patches and modules, a snap.