On Wed, Mar 01, 2000 at 02:14:32PM -0500, John Aldrich wrote:
> *****READ THIS CAREFULLY*****
>
> THE STOCK KERNEL DOES NOT HAVE SCSI SUPPORT BUILT-IN!!!
> You HAVE to build SCSI support INTO the kernel, otherwise
> you can't boot off of SCSI. You have two choices...have a
> small IDE drive that you boot off of, and don't build-in
> SCSI support OR recompile your kernel and include support
> for your SCSI controller.
> John
However, if he's getting the dreaded "LI" symptom, it looks like
he's in trouble before the kernel is even loaded. Whether it
understands SCSI or not, LILO is not able to load it. Once he
gets LILO to do it's job, your concern will become relevant.
As far as the problem with LILO, the concern for IDE disks is
that you make sure the kernel image (the actual file on the
filesystem) exists within the first 1024 CYLINDERS of the
drive. Where that maps in MB/GB depends on the actual geometry
of the drive vs. the geometry the BIOS and Linux choose to see it
as.
I don't know if things work at all the same for SCSI drives. I
think that SCSI controllers may be smarter, and Linux (and LILO?)
get their information about the drive from the SCSI controller's
BIOS.
If you're tired of beating your head against the wall with LILO,
you might try using GRUB to load your OS(s)
(http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub.html). I use it at home
and find it hugely superior to LILO. GRUB reads the filesystems
on your machine during bootup, rather than having to just store
an offset onto the drive where it expects the kernel to be. The
advantage, is that if you compile a new kernel or move it or
something, you don't have to remember to update your boot manager
to be able to boot up the next time.
- rick
--
Richard Kilgore | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Software Developer | http://lore.ece.utexas.edu/~rkilgore/
Graduate Student in Computer Engineering
