[Astlinux-devel] differences between net5501 and geni586

Is there a documented list of the differences between the geni586 and
net5501 builds?  Reason I ask is that I have been using vmware to test
builds before deploying onto my Alix box.  However I have needed to build
the geni586 version for vmware and the net5501 for Alix.
I had been hoping to run the net5501 version in vmware and thought that I
would be able to do so if I could figure out how to setup a serial port in
vmware that I could connect to from somewhere else to capture the console
output.  yesterday I figured out how to configure the serial ports and can
successfully see output generated by the net5501 build through a serial
console. However, the net5501 build is failing to detect the virtual
ethernet connection in vmware... only the loopback interface is live (on
typing ifconfig).  I'm guessing therefore that the net5501 build is not
including all the same ethernet drivers that the geni586 build does.  Is
there a way to add them to the net5501 build?


Oh... and before you ask.  In the vmx file for astlinux add...
serial0.present = "TRUE"
serial0.fileType = "pipe"
serial0.yieldOnMsrRead = "TRUE"
serial0.startConnected = "TRUE"
serial0.fileName = "\\.\pipe\vmcom1"

and in the vmx file for your CentOS (or whatever you use) add...
serial0.present = "TRUE"
serial0.fileType = "pipe"
serial0.pipe.endPoint = "client"
serial0.yieldOnMsrRead = "TRUE"
serial0.startConnected = "TRUE"
serial0.fileName = "\\.\pipe\vmcom1"

Now in CentOS you can use mincom (or other terminal emulator) to connect to
/dev/ttyS0 (I need to sudo to get permission to access this device)

The above is specific to Windows vmware hosts (the fileName pipe syntax) if
you use Mac or Linux hosts then you will need some other syntax. I have the
above running using VMware Player on Windows XP.

Thanks,
David