Forever never goes beyond tomorrow.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of civileme
> Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 11:27 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [Cooker] Very weak ATA100 support in Mandrake!
>
>
>
>
>
> On Friday 16 February 2001 05:58, you wrote:
> > Eugenio Diaz wrote:
> > > Well, despite all that effort in documenting the problem,
> no action has
> > > been taken to solve it.
> >
> > But action has been taken, in the ongoing development sense, but not
> > the field support sense. Maybe by the kernel team rather than
> > Mandrake. For example I installed the latest Cooker yesterday
> > (kernel 2.4.1-12mdk) and it happily installs and runs through the
> > Promise Mass Storage chip.
> >
> > > As I test new kernels, I see that some times they work, and
> > > when the next update comes, it does not work again; which
> leads me to
> > > believe there is a real problem with the ide patches. And under no
> > > circumstance is this an intermittent hw problem, since
> 2.2.16 work every
> > > time, and the ones that don't fail every time. I normally
> just update my
> > > rpms, and have an install that went from RH 5.2 to
> Rawhide to Cooker; and
> > > for a while I thought the problem was because of that,
> but when I tried
> > > doing a boot from the install image, I got the same
> problem, which means
> > > that anybody that has a Promise (may be with WD drives)
> based ATA66/100
> > > will fail to install Mandrake. Isn't that important
> enough to get some
> > > attention?
> >
> > Yes, it certainly is. I for one complained loudly and got
> this reply
> > from Pixel:
> >
> > "Ron Stodden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > "> I think it inescapable that 7.2 and Cooker (both tree (floppy
> > images,
> >
> > > etc) and isos) are reissued supporting ATA100 drives,
> since there are
> > > so many already in the market and 7.2 is the current
> Mandrake Linux.
> >
> > "For the moment i don't care much, i'm using the old 7.2 boot kernel
> > until the
> > 2.4 ramdisk bug is fixed. *Then* you will have (b)leading edge!"
> >
> > Assuming that is imminent, it's good news. But I still think he
> > does not appreciate the field support, retrofit, recall,
> implications
> > for 7.2 downloaders or purchasers - maybe that belongs to Mandrake
> > QA?
> >
> Yep, it does.
> >
> >Probably all it would take is a little note attached to all
> > unsold copies with the append string to enable the Promise IDE
> > channels as IDE 2 & 3 so that the installer can find these drives.
>
> Well, tell me more and I'll make sure it is at least on the
> web site at
> 72last--just email privately.
>
> > Or showing how to disable both the existing IDE channels
> and with the
> > required lilo append string to make the Promise IDE channels appear
> > as IDE 0 & 1?
> >
> > MandrakeSoft may be hopefully hiding behind the imminent release of
> > 8.0, plus maybe there have not been that many registered complaints
> > received about this difficulty.
> >
> > Muse: It is strange that Promise chose that way of doing it. On
> > Windows it is acceptable because shifting your hard drive farm from
> > IDE0 & 1 to IDE 2 & 3 will cause the same drive letters to be
> > assigned to the same partitions. But on Linux that
> concept does not
> > apply, and Promise should have known that. Changing your disk farm
> > from hda, hdb, hdc and hdd to hde, hdf, hdg & hdh is not trivial
> > since none of those Linuxes will run any more and it takes work from
> > another running Linux located somewhere else to fix them
> up. IMHO,
> > Promise should be taken out and shot!
>
> Yet they have your money and you have their chip.<g>
>
> How about doing this? Since you have 2.4 on a machine with
> this particular
> chip (we have NO examples) check the speed with hdparm and
> the settings. How
> much tuning has happened? What can you produce if you leave
> autotune out and
> try hdparm settings yourself? Which method works better?
> And a dmesg with
> your report would be helpful.
>
>
> >Their mass storage chip
> > should have taken over all 4 IDE channels at ATA100.
>
> I agree, but then what would happen to ide controllers
> plugged into the
> motherboard, like other Promise cards? I am sure Promise
> thought of that.
>
> Civileme
> --
> QA/Software Testing
I have been following Ron's thread with interest, beening that I have 2 Asus
A7V MOBOs
with the hds connectted to the onboard ATA100 controller.
I am not able to install either 7.2 or the latest cooker ISO on eiter
machine even when using params. (I would either get a no vaid device found
for file system or the installation would hang at partition check.)
I know almost nothing about writing code or programs but I can tell you that
the RH Fisher beta installation will work on these systems.
Perhaps the procedures which it uses could be examined and implemented for
the Mandrake installer.
Charles
