Linux-Hardware Digest #333, Volume #10 Wed, 26 May 99 15:13:37 EDT
Contents:
Re: USB was: Zoom 56K PCI Faxmodem ("Gene Heskett")
Re: Caldera 2.2 and Compaq 3200 RAID controller (Brian McCullough)
Re: Backup solution for a single linux box with about 10Gig drive. (killbill)
Re: Multiple Monitors (Suran)
Re: Linux on Dual Pentium-II machines (Suran)
Re: IBM 22 GByte hard disk (Nick Birkett)
Terabite Plus Filesystems (Jake Maizel)
Lucent WinModem-Will it work? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Linux on desktop Dells ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Problem booting from hard disk (Stefano Ghirlanda)
Re: ASUS P2BD vs. SuperMicro P6DBE (David Fox)
Re: ASUS P2BD vs. SuperMicro P6DBE (bryan)
contest ("Ron Hill")
Re: Boot off SCSI not IDE (Per Steinar Iversen)
Re: Lucent WinModem-Will it work? (Chris Aiken)
Re: kernel unable to handle page fault (Bob Tennent)
Re: 3c905x.o driver needed!!! ("Nicola McNally")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 26 May 99 09:09:26 -0500
From: "Gene Heskett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USB was: Zoom 56K PCI Faxmodem
Warning, lengthy tirade here folks.
Gene Heskett sends Greetings to Tim Moore;
>> Ahh, but thats being worked on. I was just over to the 2.3.x
>> sites, and saw that USB is one of the things being worked on as we
>> speak. 6 months for a stable kernel with USB maybe.
TM> Just in time to be flushed for firewire. Thanks again, Intel.
Don't worry about firewire, it *was* a nice idea. Intel jumped on this
because its a possible alternative for cheap computer bus useage.
Firewire is effectively a dead issue unless the FCC can find the power
to mandate its useage in an industry wide compatible format by such and
such a date, and then fine the hell out of those that are still dragging
their collective feet on that date. It is as yet, one of the major
stumbling blocks to the high definition tv rollout, because nobody is
going into production with an industry wide, cable ready, hi-def tv, or
set top box adaptor, until such time as a standard has been agreed upon.
The problem is that everyone interested in its use, also has a vested
interest in seeing to it that *their* copy protection scheme and
protocol is the adopted one for the whole industry.
Not to mention that after a couple of years of promulgating it as free,
the patent holder, Apple Computer, has now decided the license is gonna
be a small fee per seat at the table for the consumer with figures I've
read at one dollar per unit across the OEM's shipping docks. Which, by
the time it gets thru the retail channels to Wally World, will raise the
price sticker on the box by a 20 dollar bill.
Until such time as there is a consensus between RIAA, MPAA and the cable
tv interests, forget it, firewire ain't gonna happen, anyplace but the
development labs. And its currently getting dusty on the bottom shelf
in the storage room while the attorney's endlessly discuss it ad-infinitum.
The FCC is apparently powerless. There are petitions before them right
now to set a quick 'compatibility has been achieved' date, and if no
standard is set by that date, for them to set a very narrow
specification themselves. And if they did, you can bet the MPAA et all
would have it tied up in court for 20 years.
If you'd like a precedent for that perception of the situation, recall
what Leonard Kahn did to AM Stereo with nothing but his legal sabre
rattling. Because of him, they decided to 'let the marketplace decide',
and because there is no standard, I don't think there remains today,
anyone broadcasting AM Stereo, in any of the then competing formats. Go
ahead, check at your fav car sound dealer. Do they even have a unit
for sale that can receive AM Stereo, in any format? I'll save you the
trouble, the answer is no, unless they have some 20 year old stock in
the back room getting dusty.
Don't worry about firewire, it *was* a nice idea.
Cheers, Gene
--
Gene Heskett, CET, UHK |Amiga A2k Zeus040 50 megs fast/2 megs chip
Ch. Eng. @ WDTV-5 |A2091,GuruRom,1g Seagate,CDROM,Multiface III
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or |Buddha + 4 gig WDC drive, 525 meg tape
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>|Stylus Pro, EnPrint, Picasso-II, 17" vga
RC5-Moo! 22kkeys/sec isn't much, but it all helps
--
------------------------------
From: Brian McCullough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Caldera 2.2 and Compaq 3200 RAID controller
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 11:38:58 -0500
Laith Suheimat wrote:
> Hello,
> ....
> Also, does anyone have any recommendations for RAID configurations? RAID 5
> across all disks, or RAID 1 on two and RAID 5 on 4 others? [the server's
> only role will be that of a webserver].
>
Raid5 or Raid1? I have linux running on MetaStor 3201, Raid5 across 6 (9 gig)
disks.
I am using a symbios 875 scsi card, I had scsi bus reset problems with the
2.0.x
kernels but were fixed in 2.2.x. I tried an aha-2944w for kicks and got bus
resets
with the 2.2.3 kernel.
IF you are going to have a very large / (root) partion, I suggest that you
create a
small /boot partion on /dev/sda1. This will make sure the boot loader will be
able to find the kernel and not leave you at a 'LI' prompt or a 'missing
operating system'
message.
Brian,
------------------------------
From: killbill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Backup solution for a single linux box with about 10Gig drive.
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 13:43:40 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Gen. Sisyphus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I like your suggestion. Specially since I don't have to worry
> about media life and since I can put some cool tracks on CDs.
> What CDRW drive do you recommend and how much is it? How much
> are the CDs?
>
> Si
I researched my purchase about 9 months ago, and chose the Philips 2600
(I think... I am going from memory) IDE 2x/6x CDRW. At the time, there
were only about 4 units selling at the $200 level. The Philips unit had
1 MB cache, supported every format I could dream of, was widely sold and
supported by Linux, and was in stock at buy.com. I was nervous about
support at the time, so I went with the drive that everyone else had.
It is a good drive, and I am happy with it, but I would probably pick
another today. I would look for a drive with at least 2MB cache, IDE
interface, at least 4x write, and specifically supported by cdrecord.
It would also be nice if it supported UDMA, but I would not make that a
requirement. You should be able to order one off the web for around
$200 to $250.
I would ask others for recomendations of drives that meet these criteria
and that they actually have working. I have not heard anyone complain
about the HP drives, and my experience has been that Philips equipment
looks cool and is more innovative, but tends to be less reliable, while
HP parts are un-inspiring, but perform great and are just about
indestructable.
As for media cost, it's great. If I am in a hurry, I can go down to my
local CompUSA and get blank write-once (recordable) disks for $1 each,
or rewritable disks for about $5 each. If I have more time, I can mail
order the disks (in larger quantities) from the web, and probably pay
around $0.50 each for recordables and $3 each for rewritables. Note
that this works out to about $0.50 to $3 per gigabyte... decent by any
standard.
For the master system image, I probably generate less then ten or so a
year, so I just burn them to recordable disks, and have a copy forever.
The incremental data (/home and /mnt/dosc/data) backups go to a
rewritable disk. Recordables can be read in just about any CDRom drive
ever built, and only the newer drives can read the rewritables (which
have a lower reflectivity), so if portability is an issue then go with
the recordables.
I love having a CDRW drive... definately one of the coolest peripherals
I have gotten in a long time. The windows support (via adaptec tools)
is outstanding as well.
--
Bil Kilgallon ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
--"I believe, what I believe, has made me what I am. I did not make
it, It is making me, it is the very truth of God, not the invention
of any man". Rich Mullins, quoting G.K. Chesterton.
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
------------------------------
From: Suran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Multiple Monitors
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 18:21:09 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thelonious Georgia wrote:
>
> Hey all-
>
> I have a Diamond FireGL Pro 1000, and am thinking of getting a second card
> (AGP) for multiple monitor support. Can anyone recommend an AGP card that
> works as a secondary (or can the FireGL be made a secondary to the AGP
> primary?)
Not yet. Wait for XFree 4.0.
For the FireGL: try using the x-server patched by the company with this
intel-processor-emulator(don't remember the name, try www.heise.de, they
wrote about it).
It supports the DGE-extension and works as fast as the original one.
---
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Suran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Linux on Dual Pentium-II machines
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 18:32:50 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
bryan wrote:
>
> In comp.os.linux.hardware sven the hairy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> : Is linux inferior in its handling of multiple processors than other OSs?
> : Somebody at work trashed linux in this area, but I couldn't object to his
> : comments because I don't know much about multi-processor systems. Is he full
> : of S**t?
> yes.
> you can get real close to a 2x improvement in the right situation. but not everyday.
> then again, NT isn't an everyday 2x improvement either. I'm told its more like 25%.
Let's say (1)80-(1)90% the sceduler is pretty slow.
But Linux as a monolitic kernel is not as good as say HURD(microkernel,
every bit is a server
and can be on every processor(or every mashine later)) or Be(still
monolitic but parallelized
pretty good I've ben told).
>
> : Swietanowski Artur wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> : >mumford wrote:
> : >> You're requesting info about building a number crunching system... I'm
> : >> almost positive that you could expect a significant performance hit be-
> : >> cause of the decreased cache size if you chose celerons instead of true
> : >> P-II's (celerons have 128K cache, true P-II's have 512K).
> : >
> : >All evidence to the contrary so far (in the number crunching field).
[...]
> : >Also, L2 cache of Celerons works at twice the speed of PII L2 cache.
> : >Depending on your examples, you may sometimes even get a better
> : >performance from a Celeron! (I take this info from previous
> : >discussions on the PII vs. Celeron -- search Dejanews for the
> : >original posts).
Not that much in an SMP. They have to share and syncronize on tha
allready slow
memory-interface. There is cache-trashing and flushing(Mutex-locks) all
that
stuff that people let happen if they never really profile their code.
So lets say there are rare cases where it gives mush and for crunching
BIG-numbers
you should rather think of an older alpha (still not as expensive and as
fast as you
might think but with the ablity to have a rather HUGE throuput).
---
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Nick Birkett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: IBM 22 GByte hard disk
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 17:36:11 +0100
Nick Birkett wrote:
The disk : IBM 22Gbyte, 7200 rpm, 2Mbyte cache UDMA.
>
> Problem - seems slow but this may be due to the large paritition.
>
> hdparm -t /dev/hda1
>
> /dev/hda1:
> Timing buffered disk reads: 32 MB in 10.40 seconds = 3.08 MB/sec
O.k it is fixed. Thanks for the suggestions. Actually it was my mistake .
It is on a SCSI motherboard and the BIOS had IDE disks turned off.
Now IDE is set to AUTO I get :
nrcb]# hdparm -tT /dev/hda1
/dev/hda1:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 64 MB in 0.58 seconds =110.34 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 32 MB in 1.86 seconds =17.20 MB/sec
A bit of an improvement what ?
Sorry about that !!
Nick
------------------------------
From: Jake Maizel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.admin.misc,comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.hp.misc
Subject: Terabite Plus Filesystems
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 10:25:08 -0700
We are building a system that needs to handle a huge number of files
that are 500KB-1MB in size (1-2TB total). Our only constraint right now
is the desire to use intel-based hardware for the host computers for
cost purposes. My question really is regarding which OS would best
handle a filesystem of this size. We are using lots of unix and NT so
we don't have a bias one way but we don't have experience with any OS
using a filesystem this big. What we are considering for hardware are
HP LPr hosts connected to a AL-FC RAID system (probably HP). We would
want to pick either HPUX, linux, NT or Solaris x86. Any experience
that could be passed would be great.
jake
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Lucent WinModem-Will it work?
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 15:44:28 GMT
I have a Lucent WinModem. It currently works under Win98, but I am
beginning to experiment with Linux (RH 5.2). Will this modem work? I
suspect the answer is no. Can someone recommend a modem that will
perform well under both Win98 (not ready to make the full leap just yet)
and Red Hat?
Bill
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Linux on desktop Dells
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 16:46:55 GMT
Does Linux install on those desktop Dells with that cage for all the
plug in cards? (like the Dell OptiPlex GxPro) The ISA and PCI slots are
on a separate board that then plugs into the motherboard. You'll know
what I'm talking about if you've seen it before. So if anyone has
installed Linux on these types of Dells, could you please let me know
that it's possible? Thanks.
ekw
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefano Ghirlanda)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,linux.redhat.misc
Subject: Re: Problem booting from hard disk
Date: 26 May 1999 12:29:14 GMT
>----
>Not found any [active partition] in HDD
>DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK ...
>----
I think some BIOS can mark partitions as active/inactive, and one cannot
boot from inactive ones. You may look in your BIOS setup menu if there is
such an option.
--
Stefano Ghirlanda, Zoologiska Institutionen, Stockholms Universitet
Office: D554, Arrheniusv. 14, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46 8 164055, Fax: +46 8 167715, Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Support Free Science, look at: http://rerumnatura.zool.su.se
------------------------------
From: d s f o x @ c o g s c i . u c s d . e d u (David Fox)
Subject: Re: ASUS P2BD vs. SuperMicro P6DBE
Date: 26 May 1999 10:02:19 -0700
bryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> David Fox <d s f o x @ c o g s c i . u c s d . e d u> wrote:
> : Maxim Bazhenov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> : > I am planing to buy a dual P-III system to use with Linux (RedHat) and
> : > I am deciding now
> : > between two motherboards: ASUS P2BD and SuperMicro P6DBE. It looks like
> : > they have pretty
> : > similar features, however P6DBE is less expensive (by about $70). Are
> : > these two motherboards
> : > both compatible with Linux? Does anybody has any good/bad experience
> : > with any of them
> : > while running Linux? Thanks a lot for any advice.
>
> : I've had a great experience with the ASUS, it replaced an unstable
> : Tyan Tiger 100 and its solid as a rock.
>
> what was wrong with the tyan? I'm running both (tyan is only a week
> old) but it seems stable enough..
It is hard to say. It would just freeze up now and then, usually when
the IDE disks were under heavy load. Probably just a bad board.
--
David Fox http://hci.ucsd.edu/dsf xoF divaD
UCSD HCI Lab baL ICH DSCU
------------------------------
From: bryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ASUS P2BD vs. SuperMicro P6DBE
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 18:48:29 GMT
David Fox <d s f o x @ c o g s c i . u c s d . e d u> wrote:
: bryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
: > David Fox <d s f o x @ c o g s c i . u c s d . e d u> wrote:
: > : Maxim Bazhenov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
: >
: > : > I am planing to buy a dual P-III system to use with Linux (RedHat) and
: > : > I am deciding now
: > : > between two motherboards: ASUS P2BD and SuperMicro P6DBE. It looks like
: > : > they have pretty
: > : > similar features, however P6DBE is less expensive (by about $70). Are
: > : > these two motherboards
: > : > both compatible with Linux? Does anybody has any good/bad experience
: > : > with any of them
: > : > while running Linux? Thanks a lot for any advice.
: >
: > : I've had a great experience with the ASUS, it replaced an unstable
: > : Tyan Tiger 100 and its solid as a rock.
: >
: > what was wrong with the tyan? I'm running both (tyan is only a week
: > old) but it seems stable enough..
: It is hard to say. It would just freeze up now and then, usually when
: the IDE disks were under heavy load. Probably just a bad board.
strange. are you using the EXACT same setup (same disks, cards, etc)
in your new board?
I've seen some vendor interoperability issues before (on drives) but
not on the BX chipset, and both the asus p2b and tyan tiger 100 use
the same chipset..
--
Bryan
------------------------------
From: "Ron Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: contest
Date: 26 May 1999 16:23:39 GMT
Enter to win at http://www.gennow.com
Check out our deals !!
Complete Computer packages from 699.99 USD 999.99CDN
check it out and enter to win at http://www.gennow.com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Per Steinar Iversen)
Subject: Re: Boot off SCSI not IDE
Date: 26 May 1999 16:16:01 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Wed, 26 May 1999 15:45:04 GMT,
Nick Zentena <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>>
>> The BIOS setup on your motherboard will not contains any SCSI
>> information unless you have a SCSI controller on the motherboard.
>
> Thats not always true. My current Asus MB [P2B-F] doesn't have a scsi
>controller onboard but will let you boot off a scsi disk by setting the
>bios that way. The mb ships with the scsi bios onboard. [symbios/ncr] My
>old Asus mb had the same ability.
Same with my MSI MB, it boots from SCSI (Adaptec 2940UW), even
though there is a large IDE disk in the system too.
-psi
------------------------------
From: Chris Aiken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Lucent WinModem-Will it work?
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 13:50:54 -0400
You are out of luck with that modem. In reality it is not a
modem but a "phone dialing only" device. The modem functions
are performed by your CPU and the drivers that were installed
with this so called modem. That is typical of winmodems. They
were designed to work from Windoz only.
I have an external Viking modem ( Model RFM56KEXT ) and
it works great with Windoz 95/98/NT4/MAC and Linux. Cost about
$100 US at www.compusa.com You might find it cheaper elsewhere.
Hope this helps...
...cwa
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I have a Lucent WinModem. It currently works under Win98, but I am
> beginning to experiment with Linux (RH 5.2). Will this modem work? I
> suspect the answer is no. Can someone recommend a modem that will
> perform well under both Win98 (not ready to make the full leap just yet)
> and Red Hat?
>
> Bill
>
> --== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
> ---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Tennent)
Subject: Re: kernel unable to handle page fault
Date: 26 May 1999 16:57:09 GMT
On Tue, 25 May 1999 23:51:49 -0700, Tim Moore wrote:
>Errors in /var/log/messages Bob?
Here's a typical one. It's never the same process that fails.
kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 40009cc8
kernel: current->tss.cr3 = 02b91000, %cr3 = 02b91000
kernel: *pde = 02b90067
kernel: *pte = 00000000
kernel: Oops: 0002
kernel: CPU: 0
kernel: EIP: 0010:[locks_delete_lock+21/128]
kernel: EFLAGS: 00010206
kernel: eax: 40009cc0 ebx: c3400320 ecx: c2d05ea0 edx: 00000000
kernel: esi: c3400320 edi: c26ba7e0 ebp: c24196c0 esp: c2579f38
kernel: ds: 0018 es: 0018 ss: 0018
kernel: Process rpm (pid: 819, process nr: 23, stackpage=c2579000)
kernel: Stack: c24196c0 00000000 00000000 c2d05ea0 c26ba7e0 bffff9cc
c2419650 02392025
kernel: 02281027 c011b1b4 c2578000 c2c5ed20 0807e9e0 00000000
c2c5f1f8 08048000
kernel: c021d9e0 0807e9e0 c2578000 000001f8 02281025 c010f067
c01243e3 c2d05ea0
kernel: Call Trace: [handle_mm_fault+212/360] [do_page_fault+267/780]
[filp_close+75/96] [sys_close+76/88] [system_call+52/56]
kernel: Code: 89 50 08 85 d2 74 08 89 42 04 eb 08 8d 76 00 a3 a8 30 20 c0
>
>If >= 64MB phys mem:
> # echo "256 512 1024" > /proc/sys/vm/freepages
>
>If >= 256MB phys mem:
> # echo "512 1024 2048" > /proc/sys/vm/freepages
>
>You might want to # cat /proc/sys/vm/freepages first. You might check
>to see if freepages is in the same place first. This will ensure the
>kernel has enough breathing space to manage memory.
I get 128 256 384! Since when is 384 a power of 2? Should this be
set by a LILO parameter? I have recently upgraded to 64MB of RAM.
>
>Otherwise something may have a memory leak. Check your system's memory
>allocation immediately after you boot. With the usual daemons and X11,
>between 24 and 36MB. Everything thereafter is generally buffer, cache,
>and applications. Try 'ps auxww | sort -n +5 | tail' every minute in
>the heavy use period. The biggest memory users will be at the bottom.
>
Thanks for the suggestions.
Bob T.
>Bob Tennent wrote:
>>
>> My system has become unstable. The problem is that after
>> some 10 to 15 minutes of heavy memory use the kernel is unable
>> to handle page faults.
------------------------------
From: "Nicola McNally" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 3c905x.o driver needed!!!
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 20:21:19 +0200
If you are intending to use a 3c905 Boomerang, the 3c59x.o works. Pass
debug=0 as a parameter to the loading.
KERR, MIKE wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>I'm trying to install a NIC card on a Red Hat 5.2 machine but I don't
>have the appropriate drivers. I'm not sure where to find drivers. Could
>somebody point me in the right direction?
>Thanks.
>
>-Mike
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Hardware Digest
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