Linux-Hardware Digest #624, Volume #9 Wed, 10 Mar 99 19:13:42 EST
Contents:
Re: Speed..Speed..Speed (Michael Ross)
E-Tech PCTA128 Dolphin ISDN ("RvdB")
Re: Jaz drives ("Michael Faurot")
Re: hard disk partitioning problems (Andries Brouwer)
Re: One Linux "system" bootable on two different machines? (R. Ransbottom)
Re: Can't get PC100 motherboard w/sound to work (Ray)
Re: hard disk partitioning problems (David Kirkpatrick)
Alien Hardware Port ("Patrick Greer")
ATI xpert@work (Rage Pro) with SVGAText (Robert Schiele)
Re: HELP: K6-2 motherboard w/ Linux; Perf. compares/ PII (Ray)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Speed..Speed..Speed
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 11:29:59 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
John Burton wrote:
>
> "Jos� Rui Faustino de Sousa" wrote:
> >
> > Jim Moser wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > >which
> > >will require scads of floating point
> > >calculations
> >
> > Rule of thumb need floating point use intel... BUT if you have money enough (and
> > if you are considering dual Xeon 2MB you have) take a look at alpha the new
> > processor 21264 is really the best money can buy... And if you run linux you can
> > save a bunvle in software...
>
> "Rule of thumb need floating point use Intel" ???? I've always heard
> just the opposite...need floating point, DON'T use Intel...
>
> Anyone have any Benchmarks on the 21264 ? Price / Mflop ?
>
> >
> > Anyway if you need lots of IO get a SCSI subsystem maybe RAID level zero for
> > even faster performance (see DPT they have very nice caching controlers)
> >
>
> Aggree with the SCSI, Have had trouble with DPT 2044UW controller &
> Linux... Seems at maximum transfer rate (20Mhz) I get rnadom SCSI Bus
> errors and occasional lock ups...the two drivers (EATA & EATA-DMA) under
> kernel 2.0.36 have *different* errors, but *neither* work without errors
> at full transfer rates...and yes, I have checked cables, devices,
> terminations, etc. I've swapped the card with an Adaptec 2940UW and
> didn't have any problems. I swapped the individual drives with new
> drives, and got the errors on the new drives. I've tried several cables,
> including those sold by Adaptec that were designed to work for maximum
> transfer rates on an UW bus...only consitent thing was DPT controller +
> 20Mhz SCSI Xfer rate = SCSI Bus errors (timeouts, device busy, etc...)
>
> > >So I'm looking at the new high end processors..PII/PIII and discover
> > >this PII Xeon chip.
> > >
> >
> > PIII does not pay... Yet maybe with the new chipsets at 133Mhz FSB and faster
> > clock speeds... The new intructions will take _too_ long to be implemented by
> > compiler makers...
> >
>
> True, the P-III does not have any new features that will cause any
> preformance increase, but the manufacturers I looked at are selling
> systems with them that are pricewise the same as a PII at the same
> speed... (i.e. a P-II 400 system is about $300 more than a P-II 350, and
> a P-III 450 is $300 more than a P-II 400, and a P-III 500 is $300 more
> than a P-III 450...) so it seems they are being priced as high speed
> P-II systems...
>
> >
> > >As far as I can see.. the main difference is the L2 cache speed. Has
> > >anybody seen any benchmarks
> >
> > And floating point, wich is very important to you...
>
> Ummm...where did you get your info? I haven't been able to find *any*
> benchmarks that say a 400 Mhz Xeon is any better at Floating point
> operations than a 400Mhz P-II... In fact they have the *same* core (FPU
> included) and the primary difference between the Xeon and the P-II (and
> P-III) is that the L2 cache on the Xeon runs at *cpu* speed, where the
> L2 cace on the other run at 1/2 cpu speed... so, data access is somewhat
> faster, but the floating point operations is not significantly
> different...
>
> >
> > See http://www.tomshardware.com/ they have a lot of benchmarks there...
> >
>
> Also take a look at the Spec homepage (http://www.spec.org) for
> comparisons with *lots* of systems...
>
> John
>
> --
> John Burton, Ph.D.
> Senior Associate GATS, Inc.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11864 Canon Blvd - Suite 101
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) Newport News, VA 23606
> (757) 873-5920 (voice) (757) 873-5920 (fax)
Again, your mileage may vary. If your application is able to make
use of the Pentium III's new instructions for single precision f.p.,
and your application has significant time spent in loops that are
able to take advantage of the two at a time single f.p. capability,
then your app may see a significant perf. increase. The standard 80x87
instructions are not significantly different from Pentium II, that much
is correct.
--
__
Mike Ross
## [EMAIL PROTECTED]
## Remove 1 on com above to reply, no spam
MicroComputer Software Labs
EY2-03
5350 N.E. Elam Young Parkway
Intel Corp.
Hillsboro, Oregon 97124
For information about Intel FORTRAN and VTUNE:
http://developer.intel.com/design/perftool/ifl24/ifl24wht.htm
http://developer.intel.com/design/perftool/VTUNE/fortenv.htm
For information about EPC FORTRAN 90:
http://www.epc.com
" I don't speak for Intel. All opinions are solely those of the author."
------------------------------
From: "RvdB" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: E-Tech PCTA128 Dolphin ISDN
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 23:38:55 +0100
Does anybody know how to get this ISDN adapter to work under Linux (SuSE
6.0) ?
------------------------------
From: "Michael Faurot" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Jaz drives
Date: 27 Feb 1999 23:44:54 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: I'm pretty new to the Linux world, so please excuse my apparent
: lack of knowledge =) I recently purchased a 2GB Jaz drive and would be
: interested in using it under Linux as well. Can anyone please offer
: me advice on how to do this?
It's primarily just a matter of having a SCSI host adapter supported by
the kernel you're using. If you don't already have one, good choices are
those made by BusLogic/Mylex or those that use an NCR/SymBios chipset.
The kernel will then see it as a removable SCSI drive.
: A friend of mine who knows pretty much everything about Linux said
: it's very doubtful it will work. Is he right?
Nope--dead wrong.
--
==============================================================================
Michael | mfaurot | Many people are unenthusiastic about their work.
Faurot | phzzzt.atww.org |
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Andries Brouwer)
Subject: Re: hard disk partitioning problems
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 22:43:53 GMT
Klaus Voelker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
: I recently installed a new 6.4GB harddrive (Quantum Fireball) on my
: system (Abit BH6 board with Celeron 300A, running RedHat Linux 5.2 and
: Win95). I'm using it as secondary master. I created several partitions
: to use under Linux, as well as one large DOS partition, to use under
: Windows 95. I encountered the following problems:
: * Disk Druid would not accept the first partition I defined, and reply
: with 'unknown error'.
: * When using fdisk's 'verify partition table' option, it complained that
: my Linux partitions would overlap, although they certainly do not by
: sector number. Does this simply mean that the second partitions starts
: in the middle of a cylinder, so that two partitions share the same
: cylinder? Is it OK to ignore these warnings, or might there be serious
: trouble here?
The position of the partitions is indicated in two ways.
Linux uses one way. DOS uses the other.
"Overlap" usually means: "overlap from DOS' point of view".
You can ignore that if and only if you do not have DOS on the disk.
The DOS point of view is inherently broken - it cannot handle disks
larger than 8.4 GB. The new Windows partition types follow Linux.
: Well, I chose to ignore the warning messages, and both the Linux system
: and the DOS partition work fine by themselves. However, I configured
: the partitions in such a way that there was NO overlap reported between
: my last Linux partition and the DOS partition. Nevertheless:
: * After working under Linux for a while, my DOS partition became
: unusable, and could be read neither by Windows95 nor under DOS. I had
: to reformat the partition. This, however, messed up the Linux system
: and made my last Linux partition unusable.
: It seems that there IS some overlap between the last Linux partition and
: the DOS partition, or, that Windows and Linux don't agree on the
: location of the partitions. I tried to read the HowTo's on this topic,
: but didn't feel smarter afterwards. Can anyone give me detailed
: instructions on how to resolve this problem????
The very first step would be to look at the partition table, but you
do not give it.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (R. Ransbottom)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.x,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: One Linux "system" bootable on two different machines?
Date: 10 Mar 1999 13:11:20 -0500
In article <01be64ac$52f541f0$8aea689b@w784749>,
Norm Dresner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I need to create a Jaz disk that can be booted to linux on two different
>machines with two different motherboards, video cards, ... The only
>constancy I can count on is that the SCSI Jaz drive will be the boot drive
>for both machines.
You can do this easily.
I understand that you want to have one linux system that you
can plug into two different sets of hardware, i.e. at work and home.
>I assume I can create two different kernels and choose which one to boot
>thru LILO -- an alternate would be to boot to DOS with a floppy which then
>uses the OS loader to load the right kernel. Has anyone done this before?
No. One kernel should suffice, just configure the devices required
for both machines into the one kernel.
>As for the video, I need to run X-window on both computers. Can I reliably
>write a program which would look at the hardware and then copy/rename the
>right set of configuration and server files for the appropriate computer?
Find something unique in /proc to grep to distinguish which
config you want and symlink your X configuration accordingly.
> Thanks for any hints, suggestions, etc.
Cleanliness would dictate that you shutdown to a known state. That
is that you are always booting from the same state. Either a neutral
state or from your default machine's config.
--
--
rob
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ray)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Can't get PC100 motherboard w/sound to work
Date: 10 Mar 1999 22:50:02 GMT
It sounds like you have CMI 8330 based sound hardware. There has been a lot
of discussion of this chipset here so you might want to do a Dejanews
search. In short, that chipset is compatable with the SB16 and also the WSS
(Windows Sound System) so you can treat it like one of those. Don't forget
to use the ISA PnP tools to set up the card. Back when I was using one of
these, it required a patch to unmute the sound but I think that may have
been fixed. You could also use the Alsa sound drivers which handle unmuting
the card just fine.
On 8 Mar 1999 07:17:49 -0600, David Calladine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>
>I have a PC100 motherboard with onboard sound, and I cannot get it to work
>at all. I have tried 2 kernels, 2.0.36 and 2.2.2, and have had no joy. (or
>sound!). I have tried compiling the kernels with both modules sound
>support and direct, I have run sndconfig and select every possible
>parameters combination.
>
>I'm sure there is a way, any suggestions?
>
> I am running Redhat 5.2, kernel 2.2.2, the sound card info from the
>motherboard book...
>
>"Onboard 3D Sound Pro meets PC98' SPEC and supports HRTF Positional Audio
>Direct Sound 3D with Aureal 3D driver, Software Wave-table Synthesizer, and
>Digital Audio Interface (SPDIF) IN/OUT"
>
>Whatever that means!
>
>
--
Ray
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: David Kirkpatrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: hard disk partitioning problems
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 15:48:38 +0000
Klaus,
Just a guess but there is some confusion with druid and making
partitions - it sometimes lets you define things and the checks are not
very robust. Later is will make some adjustments on its own to correct
thing and the corrected partitions may not be exacely as specified.
If you use fdisk - safer - you can only make 4 primary partitions, or
three primaries and make one extended - the extended then becomes the
housing for more parts numberer from 5 and up.
So I'm not help on what to do now but if you did make several parts
and it complained and you went on anyway you probably got caught by the
above and may be experiencing problems because of it. But this may be
usefull info should the worse occur and you are required to revisit disk
druid and fdisk.
d
Klaus Voelker wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I recently installed a new 6.4GB harddrive (Quantum Fireball) on my
> system (Abit BH6 board with Celeron 300A, running RedHat Linux 5.2 and
> Win95). I'm using it as secondary master. I created several partitions
> to use under Linux, as well as one large DOS partition, to use under
> Windows 95. I encountered the following problems:
>
> * Disk Druid would not accept the first partition I defined, and reply
> with 'unknown error'. If I ignore this and define additional
> partitions, they are accepted. Since this seemed very suspicious to me,
> I chose to use fdisk to partition my disk:
>
> * When using fdisk's 'verify partition table' option, it complained that
> my Linux partitions would overlap, although they certainly do not by
> sector number. Does this simply mean that the second partitions starts
> in the middle of a cylinder, so that two partitions share the same
> cylinder? Is it OK to ignore these warnings, or might there be serious
> trouble here?
>
> Well, I chose to ignore the warning messages, and both the Linux system
> and the DOS partition work fine by themselves. However, I configured
> the partitions in such a way that there was NO overlap reported between
> my last Linux partition and the DOS partition. Nevertheless:
>
> * After working under Linux for a while, my DOS partition became
> unusable, and could be read neither by Windows95 nor under DOS. I had
> to reformat the partition. This, however, messed up the Linux system
> and made my last Linux partition unusable.
>
> It seems that there IS some overlap between the last Linux partition and
> the DOS partition, or, that Windows and Linux don't agree on the
> location of the partitions. I tried to read the HowTo's on this topic,
> but didn't feel smarter afterwards. Can anyone give me detailed
> instructions on how to resolve this problem????
>
> Thanks!!!!
>
> Klaus
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Patrick Greer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Alien Hardware Port
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 00:28:13 -0500
Hi all,
<sarcastic>
I recently recovered the wreckage of an alien spacecraft from a nearby
medical facility. Among the parts I found a 200lb+ rectangular metallic
object with a label (in english, oddly enough) stating NCR3450. This device
bears an uncanny resemblance to our MCA PS/2 computers, although the
components that appear to provide the processing and random-access storage
functions are truly alien...
</sarcastic>
Seriously, though, I came upon a NCR 3450 server, model 3435-3011. NCR has
very little available in the way of useful documentation (most of what they
offer is for NT), and the OS (NCR UNIX, I believe) had been removed (not
sure if the drives were formatted, or the partitions deleted) before I
acquired it. From what I can figure out, it looks like this machine could
scale to 8x P5-90 processors and 1GB RAM. If anyone has any experience using
one of these behemoths as a linux box (or for any other purpose, for that
matter), please post here or e-mail me.
TIA-
Patrick
------------------------------
From: Robert Schiele <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: ATI xpert@work (Rage Pro) with SVGAText
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 22:48:45 +0100
Does someone know configuration for ATI xpert@work (Rage Pro) under
SGVAText.
Is it supported?
Will it be supported?
Didn't find anything about that chipset in documentation.
Robert
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ray)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,redhat.hardware.arch.intel
Subject: Re: HELP: K6-2 motherboard w/ Linux; Perf. compares/ PII
Date: 10 Mar 1999 23:59:35 GMT
On Wed, 10 Mar 1999 01:17:05 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'm looking to buy a K6-2 system (400MHz) to run
>the following software:
>
> Linux 5.2/6.0 SSE + Apache + PHP + mySQL.
>
>The K6-2 system I'm looking at has:
>
>- Motherboard: SIS598, (same AMPTRON 9900?)
>- BIOS: AMI
>- 1MB cache
>- 64MB RAM
>- 100MHz bus
>- 6GB disk (UDMA, 5400 rpm)
>- 8MB video AGP (on motherboard)
>- 40x CD
>- sound + speakers (16-bit sound on motherboard)
>- NO monitor
>- mouse, keyboard
>- 1 year warranty
>>
>> Price is around: $750. (OK pricing?
>
Not too bad. You can get the parts slightly cheaper but you'd have to buy
in quantity or buy from several different vendors which means that you'd get
killed on shipping.
>Q's:
>
>1. Should the above system be able to compile/run
>RedHat 5.2 or 6.0 ?
Yes. The support for that sound and Video setup is fairly new so it might
not be totally painless but it's all do-able.
>
>2. I read some people have trouble w/ the motherboard.
>Anyone heard of: SIS598, (same AMPTRON 9900?)
The SIS5598 is used on many different motherboards. I havn't used Amptron
motherboards but I've used other motherboards with that chipset without
problems.
>
>3. The motherboard has the hard drive controller and
>video on the board (not separate card). Could this
>be a problem?
The HD controller is suported but you'll need a new kernel to take advantage
of DMA/UDMA support. You can worry about that later though since the system
will work fine without it (the improved support).
>
>6. Comparing a Celeron 400MHz vs. Pentium II 400MHz vs.
>a K6-2 400MHz (running Linux, Apache, PHP + mySQL), does
>anyone have an idea on the run-time performance differences
>between the 3 CPU's running Linux - especially in a high
>database / web page hit environment?
If you want to overclock, the Celeron might be a better choice (but it won't
work with that motherboard). If it were me, I'd consider either saving some
money and going with a slightly slower K6-2 300 or 350. There really isn't
much speed difference. Alternatively you might look at the newer K6-3 which
will perform as well or better than any of the above.
>7. If Linux runs OK - should Apache, PHP and mySQL also?
Yes
It sounds like you are looking at a fairly low end system (in terms of
quality, not speed). That means that you'll probably get a small case with
and somewhat less reliable components than you might choose if you were
putting it together yourself. I'm talking about things like a noisy or
somewhat slow hard drive, CD that dies after a year or two, keyboard and
mouse that just don't feel good etc. This isn't really a Linux issue but
just the way the computer business is these days. If two companies sell
systems with the same "specs." consumers will always buy the cheeper one
even the quality isn't there. Also if it comes with a modem, there
is a good chance it will be a win-modem so you might be better off geting
the modem locally.
I hope this helps.
--
Ray
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Hardware Digest
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