On Sun, 1 Oct 2000, Niall Kavanagh wrote:
> ATA/66 is pretty common, so I would expect drivers on the base install. A
> neophyte may well have been stumped here and given up. Windows 98/2000 has
> no problems with this setup, it's a shame RH 7.0 does.
I suspect this is not a Red Hat issue, but rather, a Linux one.
ATA/66 may be common, but the host controller interface is not quite so
simple. There is no standard for i386 protected mode I/O, so everyone pretty
much invents their own hardware interfaces and providers drivers for each OS
they care about. This generally means only Microsoft offerings, these days,
Windows has fall back modes which let it use INT13 and extensions for I/O if
protected mode drivers are not available. Linux does not (by design). Thus,
lack of drivers causes lousy performance under Windows, but stops Linux dead.
Windows also makes it easier for third parties to provide their own drivers,
in particular, closed-source, binary-only drivers. Putting all other
technical and political arguments aside, this makes it easier for some
companies to release Windoze drivers while keeping their own lawyers happy.
On the other hand, if/when Open Source drivers for your particular ATA/66
controller chipset are incorporated into the standard kernel, then you can
expect Linux to install as smoothly as silk on a baby's bottom. Hardware
support under Linux tends to be a rather all-or-nothing proposition. :)
> - XFree86 4.0!
Any comments on this? Performance and stability in particular?
> Install completed, reboot, no lilo.
How far does it get?
> Realize I'm a moron because I didn't make a boot disk during the install.
Heh heh. Been there. Done that. Several times. Haven't learned yet. :-)
You can (or at least, used to be able to -- I haven't tried under 7.0) boot
the install set and get a bash prompt, and then finagle around until you
generate a working boot floppy. Usually this involves mounting the installed
but unbootable filesystems, and then some combination of chroot, mkinitrd,
mkbootdisk, and lilo, not necessarily in that order. Whether this is easier
then just reinstalling everything is left as an exercise to the reader. :-)
> WARNING: I have switched from cigarettes to nicorette. I am cranky.
Heh heh. First time I've ever seen a *person* with a Surgeon General's
Warning. ;-) Good luck trying to kick the habit.
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Net Technologies, Inc. <http://www.ntisys.com>
Voice: (800)905-3049 x18 Fax: (978)499-7839
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