unable to compile nforce driver under Slackware 8.1

[ychai4]

Hello:

When I try to compile the nforce driver as stated in the readme files, it gives me an error as follows:

make -C nvnet
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/mohr/nforce/nvnet'
cc -c -DLINUX -DMODULE -DEXPORT_SYMTAB -D__KERNEL__ -O -Wstrict-prototypes -DCONFIG_PM -fno-strict-aliasing -mpreferred-stack-boundary=2 -march=i686 -falign-functions=4 -DMODULE -I/lib/modules/2.4.18/build/include -DMODVERSIONS -include /lib/modules/2.4.18/build/include/linux/modversions.h nvnet.c
cc1: Invalid option `-falign-functions=4'
make[1]: *** [nvnet.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/mohr/nforce/nvnet'
make: *** [nvnet_make] Error 2


I'm at a loss as to what to do. I'm no purist... while I do not like the idea of closed source, I can understand nvidia's needs... but these needs cause a direct conflict with my need for a driver that works on my system :) Here are my specs:

Distro: Slackware 8.1
Kernel: 2.4.18
GCC: 2.95.3

Could this be an unfixable problem with the binary portion of the package? I also tried to manually patch the diff included for the sound card, which fails miserably. This, however, is not as much of an issue because I got it working with OSS. But I would really like to have that second ethernet card working....

Any ideas?

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by ychai4
cc1: Invalid option `-falign-functions=4' Edit the Makefile and change -falign-functions=4 to -malign-functions=2, re-make, and see if that helps.

In gcc 3.2, it's an -f option, and the argument is a number of bytes to align the start of the function to. But in gcc 2.95.3, it's an -m option, and you use the logarithm base 2 of the required alignment as the argument. In other words, gcc 2 takes the argument you give it, raises 2 to that power, and uses what it ends up with.

Now, this is assuming that the Makefile is actually wanting a 4-byte alignment. If it's just confused (and using an f instead of an m), then keep the 4. I'm not sure how to find that out, though, other than looking through the mess of a system that is kbuild...

[ychai4]

Thank you very much for the information. After editing the makefile, the error disappeared. Thereafter, a simple insmod nvnet.o && ifconfig eth1 up causes the new interface to be recognized and brought online. Thank you!