Linux-Hardware Digest #519, Volume #10 Fri, 18 Jun 99 03:13:39 EDT
Contents:
Re: Soundblaster 128 PCI (Larry Ozarow)
Re: Linksys Etherfast 10/100 ("Peter A. Koren")
Re: RAID for Linux / Unix apps (bryan)
Old Dell 486, couple of 1gb hd. ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Where to find a good fax+voice modem for Linux? (Greg Leblanc)
Re: RAID for Linux / Unix apps (Greg Leblanc)
AMD Lance Ethernet controller question? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Lucent win modem ("Malcolm Carlson")
Re: Can no one help me with interrupt problems? (Robin Jackson)
Re: Linksys Etherfast 10/100 (Rich Piotrowski)
Re: CD Writer reccomendations (Greg Leblanc)
Re: Best sound card for use w/ Linux? (Gravot)
Re: Performance Opinions? Xeon PII vs 2 x PIII (Greg Leblanc)
Re: Tyan S1830S / SL Tsunami AT Motherboard? (Greg Aeschliman)
Re: Multiple SCSI controllers ? (Greg Leblanc)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Ozarow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Soundblaster 128 PCI
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 02:38:48 GMT
Ryan Masters wrote:
>
> Should I even attempt to get this working under linux? Just need some
> insight...
>
> --Ryan
>
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If this is one of the cards using the Ensoniq 1370 or 1371 chips you can
look
at www.alsa-project.org. I had my AudioPCI, which I think was one of the
original SB PCI's before Creative bought them out, working pretty well
using ALSA, at least under a 2.0.xx kernel. For all I know 2.2.xx
kernels might incorporate some of the code that's been floating around
under this and other projects.
Oz
------------------------------
From: "Peter A. Koren" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Linksys Etherfast 10/100
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 21:51:20 -0500
"Michael D. Amoroso" wrote:
> Just added a Linksys Etherfast 10/100 PCI in place of the old NE2000 ISA in
> my Red Hat 5.2 system. The card is stuck in 100Mb mode even though it is
> connected to a Linksys 10Mb hub and it's supposed to be auto-sensing. All I
> get is a bunch of collisions every time the system accesses the network. I'm
> using a *very* vanilla system at this point with the Tulip v0.88 driver.
> The card is detected and I don't get any complaints from the system for it.
> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
> Mike.
I have the same card and for me it is useless on both Linux and Win95, though I
no longer
use Win95 :^)
I read recently that this card does not work with either LX or BX based
motherboards. This is second
hand, but given my experiences, I do not doubt it.
Regards,
Pete Koren
------------------------------
From: bryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: RAID for Linux / Unix apps
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 04:30:21 GMT
Mike Frisch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Why is it slower? With a proper SCSI-SCSI RAID controller, it should be
: as fast as a host based RAID controller.
scsi-scsi (even at ultra2) is theoretically slower than direct PCI-based raid.
you can't argue that the pci bus bandwidth is still faster than scsi
channel speeds. and, do they even make ultra2 -> ultra2 raid boxes?
I am aware of scsi3 but that's all.
--
Bryan [at] Grateful.Net
http://www.Grateful.Net
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Old Dell 486, couple of 1gb hd.
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 03:54:26 GMT
Hello.
I have an old 486 DX 2 Dell pc, and two ide hd of 1 gigabyte each, and
16Mb RAM.
Despite its BIOS limit (500mb hd max) I have connected the two hard
discs on the only ide port this machine has. (I fitted the two hard
disk inside the pizza box this machine has for chasis) replaced the
original IDE ribbon cable which has just one connector for hd with one
which allos to connect two HD.
Also placed an old CDROM Aztech that was ok on days of win3.1 but never
got adequate drivers to operate on win95, I was amazed to see that Red
Hat Linux 6.0 did recognized this unit as if normal and common. And a
3com 3c509 network card.
Well, when I install, my procedure is booting from floppy, so far from
the display I get to see it adequately identifies each hard disk, then
continues reading the rest of install procedure from the CD, I
chose "Server" installation, and it does partitions, and starts to
installs packages, until it suddenly freezes on the same point each
time (say at 70% of all install) say after 25 minutes of copying files.
When I reboot the machine and do the installation again, Now doing
a "Custom" install in order to get into DiskDruid and see what
happened, I notice it partitioned both hard disks, and I think to
recognize what where those supposed to be based on the sizes, but there
are no indications left which ones were supposed to be /, /boot,
swap, /usr, /var, etc. Some partitions are larger than 540Mb, I wonder
if this is the reason the install frezes, should I made by hand the
partitions keeping in mind the bios limits?
What I pretend here is to have a web and ftp server, and get my hands
on kde, and staroffice.
I would appreciate to know experiences on using old 486 like my case.
Also I have another machine, same as above described but with two 500mb
HD, what are the recommended option for this, install
using "workstation" setup? I would like to run staroffice and
administer the server from there.
Best Regards everyone.
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------------------------------
From: Greg Leblanc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where to find a good fax+voice modem for Linux?
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 04:19:28 GMT
In article <hYfa3.4907$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Tim O'Connell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Greetings, all.
>
> I've been looking for a good fax+voice modem for use with vgetty and
such
> (I'm trying to turn one of my 'puters into an answering machine.)
Because I
> have a cable modem, data connection speed is unimportant. So, I
figured I
> could do a little looking around and find myself a cheap old ISA 14.4
> Voice+Fax modem that would work with vgetty.
>
> Hah! :(
>
> The only non-winmodem voice modems I can find are US Robotics 56k
externals
> that run about $200. I've spent hours looking for Zyxel modems (the
brand
> that vgetty was supposedly written for) and I couldn't find ANYTHING
for
> sale. Does anybody have any old voice modems that would work with
vgetty
> that they wouldn't mind parting with? Or if not, does anybody know if
> there's any compatible modems (that aren't $200!) for sale online
someplace?
Try Zoltrix. They have pretty nice modems, just get them from somebody
with a return policy. The first one that I got was put together with
the wrong kind of face plate, so it wouldn't fit in my case. I got it
replaced, and I haven't had any trouble with it. I get 44,000 pretty
consistently, but I haven't tried the voice capabilities. I got it
because it was only $50 a year ago. I think they are at
http://www.zoltrix.com.
Greg
>
> Thanks ahead of time!
> Tim (the sorta-newbie)
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
--
It's pronounced "sexy" not "scuzzy"!
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------------------------------
From: Greg Leblanc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: RAID for Linux / Unix apps
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 04:10:33 GMT
In article <8Aga3.796$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
bryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> : On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 23:06:36 GMT, bryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> : >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> : >: I have been getting alot of calls, specifically
> : >: from Linux users, but also other Unix users, that
> : >: say it has been difficult to find RAID for their
> : >: systems.
> : >
> : >not difficult at all. DPT, mylex, icp-vortex - maybe others - all
> : >make raid that linux can use.
>
> : Nevermind that some would rather just have their RAID
> : subsystems such that one only needs a SCSI3 channel.
>
> : It's certainly not difficult getting a RAID subsystem
> : for a Sun. Sun sells/makes such subsystems themselves.
> : Also, various Sun servers also support internal RAID
> : configurations.
>
> well, actually ... I once tried to buy a BOOTABLE (ie, the system
> disk) in a hardware raid setup. we were paying like $10k for an
> ultra2 and wanted complete redundancy for the system - and our vendor
> said there really wasn't a good raid solution that provided SYSTEM
> disk mirroring. you could have multiple 'data' disks all you wanted,
> but not the system itself.
I don't know who your rep was/is, but get a new one. There are a number
of RAID hardware cards that work beautifully with both system and data
disks. I don't have any links, but I've seen Sbus sun machines with
only raid in them. The only time I've heard of not being able to do
system RAID was on NT software raid which doesn't work worth a darn
anyway.
>
> on linux, I use a mylex dac960 and I have raid1 on my system and raid1
> on a user pair. plus a disk for hot standby (5 disks total). so even
> if my system disk crashes, chances are the 2nd will still run for a
> bit, and the data will auto-mirror itself to the hot-standy drive.
> AFAIK, software raid can't do that.
Mirroring is nice, but I've found that I tend to get better performance
and ease of replacement from a RAID 5 array, broken into partitions. I
have all hot-swap SCA drives, but it's almost as good even if you can't
hot swap. Just shutdown, and replace the defective drive.
>
> : Any Macintosh catalog should also have external RAID
> : subsystems that could easily be attached to any
> : suitable SCSI channel.
>
> scsi-scsi raid is expensive and slower. but certainly very
> host-transparent and has NO compatibility issues, if done right.
Shouldn't be that much slower if your host controler in the computer is
fast enough. You should be able to get whatever the SCSI channel can
deliver, but it is very expensive.
Greg
>
> --
> Bryan [at] Grateful.Net
> http://www.Grateful.Net
>
--
It's pronounced "sexy" not "scuzzy"!
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------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: AMD Lance Ethernet controller question?
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 04:08:15 GMT
Hi,
I need to send and receive some raw packets to a AMD LANCE Ethernet
controller. I was wondering if anyone has any sample code already
written to do this?
Thanks
Pawan
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------------------------------
From: "Malcolm Carlson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Lucent win modem
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 00:43:46 -0500
Anybody get a Lucent Winmodem to work with linux? Do I have to disable the
pnp function somehow and if I do that, will it screw up Windows 98? I am
running both -dual booting with Linux and Win 98 and soon to be NT server
and need the modem for all os's. Any ideas?
Mcc.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Robin Jackson)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking
Subject: Re: Can no one help me with interrupt problems?
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 07:09:59 +0100
>> I have posted this problem before.
>>
>> My Adaptec 1640 PC card SCSI controller and PC Card Ethernet
>controller are
>> sharing the same interrupt.
>>
>> NOTHING I have tried will make them use different interrupts.
>>
>what did you try already?
>
>which interrupt do they use?
>
>is linux the only os on this machine?
>
>is the bios informed that your os is NOT PNP?
>
>> I am sure I must be overlooking something.
Currently both the Adaptec and Ethernet PC cards grab irq 9.
The were both grabing irq 3 but i disabled that irq in
/etc/pcmcia/config.opts hoping they would then go for different irqs each.
As they are if I copy large files to the scsi attached idks I get console
messages along the lines of unexpected interrupt whan iterrupts masked.
If I swop the cards around they both still grab the same irq but when
copying a big file I get some kind of catastrophic failure on the SCSI
card.
I am not really a PC person (I mainly use a Mac) so do not understand all
these bios and irq issues, they simply do not happen on a Mac.
The machine does still have Windows95 on another partition but have no clue
how to get in to the bios.
For clarity the machine is an IBM Thinkpad 560.
Many thanks for your help.
Robin
------------------------------
From: Rich Piotrowski <rpiotrow*nospammin'*@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Linksys Etherfast 10/100
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 23:37:00 -0500
On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, Michael D. Amoroso wrote:
>Just added a Linksys Etherfast 10/100 PCI in place of the old NE2000 ISA in
>my Red Hat 5.2 system. The card is stuck in 100Mb mode even though it is
>connected to a Linksys 10Mb hub and it's supposed to be auto-sensing. All I
>get is a bunch of collisions every time the system accesses the network. I'm
>using a *very* vanilla system at this point with the Tulip v0.88 driver.
>The card is detected and I don't get any complaints from the system for it.
>Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>Mike.
Mike,
I have two of those card here without problem.
I believe the driver version I am using is 0.89H. Anyway, It is the one that
comes with the stock 2.0.36 and 2.2.5 kernels.
Rich Piotrowski
------------------------------
From: Greg Leblanc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CD Writer reccomendations
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 04:36:15 GMT
In article
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Ashley W Campbell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have read the CD-Writing HOWTO, and seen the list of support CD
writers,
> but there was no assessment of specific devices.
>
> Are there any writers that are known to work better than others with
> Linux? Also, is there any significant difference between SCSI and IDE
> writers?
I have three cd writers (well, two of them are re-writers). I purchased
a Smart & Friendly SCSI 2x writer about a year ago, and I've been very
pleased with it. I also have two HP CD-RW drives. I've been very
pleased with them, but I run them on very fast machines. I'm a FIRM
believer, that if you have a fast system IDE is almost as fast as SCSI.
If you're going to be putting this on anything less than a P-II or K6-2
(that means anything from cyrix) I'd go with SCSI. If you're running on
a fast system, go ahead and save yourself a few bucks on an IDE drive.
Do not get the cheapest IDE drive you can get though, that would be
shooting yourself in the foot. Make sure that you get a high quality
drive from a known manufacturer, you'll save youself MANY headaches that
way.
Greg
>
> Thanks for any advice.
>
> -Ashley Campbell
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
--
It's pronounced "sexy" not "scuzzy"!
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------------------------------
From: Gravot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Best sound card for use w/ Linux?
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 04:40:22 GMT
In article <7kbbqh$pef$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
CK <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snippage>
> ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture folks) have called for a
boycott
> of Creative Labs. Specifically they are refusing to release any code
and
> only binary drivers that are 'flaky'. Since the drivers are not
included
> in the kernel they will never be officially supported. (Unless
Creative
> releases the programming specs like they originally agreed to.)
>
> Trident now has an employee on staff to develope linux drivers for
their
> sound devices. All the code is then donated to ALSA under the GPL. I
> recently picked up one of their 4DWave cards and have been impressed
> (low cost too).
>
> http://www.alsa-project.org
CK,
I checked out the ALSA and Trident homepages. The specs look good for
the 4DWave, but how is it for sound quality? How about noise? How
does it compare it to the Live! or AWE64? Do you have the DX or NX
version? Are all features supported under Linux? TIA
Gravot
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From: Greg Leblanc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Performance Opinions? Xeon PII vs 2 x PIII
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 04:57:34 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Swietanowski Artur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Alex Russell wrote:
> > A little research reveals that cost of a dual pentium III
> > system is roughly that of a single pentium III Xeon system. For
> > administrative reasons, these are the only possibilities. Which
should
> > I prefer?
> >
> > My usage profile: I usually run a number of single-threaded
> > applications over X; in general, only one of them expresses heavy
load
> > at a time, though, of course there is occasional overlap. Of course
X
> > is always running the background, along with all the other fat in
RH6.
> >
> > A quick glance through some available benchmarks suggests
that
> > the Xeon offers roughly 10% improvement in the above scenario.
>
> Depending on your graphics card and X server, chances are that during
> the peak graphics activity, the X will eat up to 30% of your single
> processor's power. A single processor will easily loose here.
>
> If you have an IDE disk, some simple but intensive disk activity
> may easily do a similar thing. My P120 occasionally gets pretty
> much saturated by just SMB request for downloading an ISO image of
> a CD, which is simply a 600MB contiguous file -- no seeking needed.
> It behaves similarly during a large file copy from one filesystem
> to another. So again, a single CPU probably looses again.
This is totally out of proportion. I used to run ide on my slower
systems, but once I class a system as older, it gets switched to SCSI.
My new systems have about the same processor use and throughput running
IDE (UDMA) disks as they do running UW scsi. Your P-120 doesn't have
enough "umph" (technical term) to deliver. A HARWARE RAID subsystem
will out-perform anything else simply because it makes your 3+ hard
disks (assuming RAID 5) look like one to the OS.
>
> A SCSI disk subsystem is much better in this respect - even servicing
> four disks, one CD and one MO at full sustainable speeds of the
> combination of the devices never gets my P120 to even 10% load.
>
> Two processors = a more responsive system. The 10% improvement will
> only be realized (if ever) only when a single application stretches
> a single CPU to the limit. This pretty much requires a low I/O, high
> computation intensity application, e.g., number crunching. So a
> single Xeon will give you the 10% improvement only during the 1% of
> the time you spend in front of your computer. Better responsivness
> will be visible 100% of the time.
I do agree that for most things multiple processors are better than one,
but there are some cases which one HUGE processor is better. This isn't
one of those cases.
>
> Depending on your usage profile (I/O, network, memory, etc.) even
> with a single 400 PII or better your best chances of boosting
> performance are not a faster processor, but:
> (a) better disk subsystem: IDE < SCSI < Raid,
See above...
> (b) more memory,
I'd start with 256M. That gives you 128M per processor, which should be
enough unless you REALLY beat the tar out of it.
> (c) more/faster NIC's and/or better hub,
Don't know what you'll be doing that would make a big difference, but
Intel, 3Com, and DEC seem to have the best chipsets.
> (d) faster graphics card,
Get something that's VERY well supported in X, with a large chunk of
ram...
> (e) a commercial X server with better acceleration, etc.
Hmm...I wasn't impressed with the commercial X server I tried back when
RedHat5.2 was first released, but I haven't tried any lately.
>
> HTH,
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Artur Swietanowski mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Institut f�r Statistik, Operations Research und Computerverfahren,
> Universit�t Wien, Universit�tsstr. 5, A-1010 Wien, Austria
> tel. +43 (1) 427 738 620 fax +43 (1) 427 738 629
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Regards,
Greg
--
It's pronounced "sexy" not "scuzzy"!
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------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Greg Aeschliman)
Subject: Re: Tyan S1830S / SL Tsunami AT Motherboard?
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 06:05:08 GMT
Thanks for the info. The S1590 Trinity is the other board that I'm really
leaning to right now. I haven't upgraded for 2-3 years and I can't
believe these prices!!
Greg Aeschliman
Osaka, Japan
On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 09:01:18 -0400, David Graham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I have been using a Trinity for 5 days now, with a K6-2/300 and 128 MB
>PC-100. Zero problems. Very nice board, for both Linux and NT.
>
>David Graham
>--
>Greg Aeschliman wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone have any comments on this board. Is anyone using it with
>> Linux? I'm thinking about this or a Tyan Trinity AT 100... Thanks for
>> any guidance.
>>
>> Greg Aeschliman
>> Osaka, Japan
------------------------------
From: Greg Leblanc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Multiple SCSI controllers ?
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 05:15:46 GMT
In article <7k4voa$g33$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>
> > What is it that leads you to believe that it's assigning SCSI2 to
the
> > 2940?
>
> Unfortunatly, due to the nature of the problem the messages aren't
> logged to /var/logs/messages, they're only displayed on the console.
>
> However when the kernel loads up it has built in SCSI drivers which
> identify the 2940. Once the kernel has loaded I then load the PCMCIA
> modules. When these load it clearly identifies scsi1 as the CardBus
> UltraSCSI, but then goes on to identify the 2940 as scsi2. It is very
> clear about scsi2 being the 2940.
Perhaps there is an autoprobe option that you can turn off for the
PCMCIA SCSI driver? I'll have to see if I can find anything in the docs
a bit later. Do post those details, so maybe we can find exactly what's
going wrong. Later,
Greg
>
> I then get a system hang, with some sort of timeout, something to do
> with requests and MSB/SMB (or something like that) not matching. I'll
> get the details tonight, and post them tomorrow.
>
> All/Any help appreciated.
>
> J
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
>
--
It's pronounced "sexy" not "scuzzy"!
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