Linux-Hardware Digest #529, Volume #10 Sat, 19 Jun 99 03:13:25 EDT
Contents:
Setting up SB16 SCSI ("August Pamplona")
Re: Does this sound like bad hardware? (John Hovell)
palmpilot IIIx and Linux: (Steverl)
Re: making linux go away ("J Chan")
Re: $mall, cheap firewall router ("Jack Coates")
Re: $mall, cheap firewall router ("Jack Coates")
Re: ASUS Motherboard problem (Phil DeBecker)
Re: Diamond Viper TNT AGP + XWindows (hazzmat)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "August Pamplona" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Setting up SB16 SCSI
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 05:17:58 GMT
Although I've played around with installing Linux several times I'm
essentially a newbie.
I'm having problems setting up a SCSI CD-ROM on a Sound Blaster 16 SCSI
II board (Adaptec AIC-6360L labeled chip). The info. I have found basically
says that I should choose aha152x and pass it parameters as
"io_base,IRQ,scsi_id,reconnect,parity" where scsi_id is the id of the
adapter (7). On this particular sound card with the default settings this
means 0x340,11,7,1. Since I've had to change the IRQ to 9 this has become
0x340,9,7,1
Actually, I think this has to be the correct info. because this is how
I've gotten it to work in the past. The problem is that it does not work
reliably. By this I mean that, for instance, I may be making 20 attempts at
installing this from the CD-ROM on the SB16 SCSI bus and 19 hang while the
20th attempt works correctly (having done to my knowledge everything the
same way). Once the installation is done, the SCSI CD-ROM does not appear to
exhibit any problems.
I've have done this several times with the same problem. My first
attempts at playing with linux (a while ago) were with a fall 1994 Yggdrasil
distribution. I've also tried Red Hat 5.2 & more recently yet Red Hat 6.0. I
have not yet been able to have the installer accept the SCSI bus for the Red
Hat 6.0 distribution. These installations were done on two different
motherboards.
If I can't get this to work, my installation strategy will have to be
limited to doing the install from a hard disk partition (except for the lack
of CD-ROM support, it works well like this as long as I tell it there are no
SCSI adapters). After the installation I'd have to add the SCSI and CD-ROM
support (although as a newbie I haven't figured out yet how to do this).
Anyway, even if it is not essential to fix the problem to do the install
(since I should be able resolve this as described in the above paragraph), I
would like to know what is causing the problem (i.e. if I'm doing it wrong,
this install should never work and if I'm doing it right it should always
work rather than crash most of the time and work rarely).
My current MB is a Soyo 5EMA with 64 Meg EDO DRAM and an AMD K6-2 350
cpu (pre CXT core, never overclocked). And of course I've got a SCSI CD-ROM
(Toshiba XM3501) attached by the SCSI port of a SoundBlaster 16 SCSI sound
card.
Thanks in advance,
August
--
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------*
* August Pamplona *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* email replace 'necatoramericanusancylostomaduodenale' with 'cosmicaug' *
* ------------------------------------------------------------------------*
------------------------------
From: John Hovell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Does this sound like bad hardware?
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 05:46:47 GMT
I have noticed the same thing on my machine. I have 64 MB of RAM (P
166). I keep this machine up for sometimes 100 days at a time. It never
crashes, but often uses all but about 2 MB of RAM.
Sometimes, with Netscape, I would get a runaway process that would
eventually eat all my memory, and so when I noticed that from top, the
load average was like 2.00. It was necessary to go and kill the processes
manually.
This usually happens from when Netscape crashes, but I'm pretty sure it
has occurred from time to time under normal usage.
I've never noticed much swap usage.
Apache does use a bit of memory.
Hope this helps,
John
PhilD wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> I finaly switch to linux because MS was driving me nuts.
> (that and I always wanted to) I am beginning to wonder now if I don't
> have some bad hardware. Here is the deal.
>
> My System
> PII - 400
> 128MB PC-100 DIMM
> 2x 8.4 Max EIDE driv
> Aopen AX6B mobo
> ATI Rage Fury 128
> Adaptec 2940UW SCSI for CD-Rom and CD-R
> 3Com ISA Pnp 56k modem
> SB PCI64 sound. -- I think that is about it
>
> In Win98 I have a horrible memory leak. At boot, I would
> only have 65%-75% resources free. After 2-4 hours of use photoshop
> and such (or web), it would be down to 40% and would slowly go down
> from there to 0% (day or two). I finally got Win98SE to see if this
> would fix the problem as I had heard of 98 having memory leaks. With
> 98SE, I now have 92%-95% free at boot up. Again, an few hours and my
> resources drop to 70%-75% and continue to drop lowly. It is a lot
> better then it was but still not good.
>
> Well, I now have RedHat 6 up and running with e/gnome. It
> works fine except for some configuration for the sound. The resources
> aren't very good though. At a fresh boot, the system monito shows
> about 60MB of ram in use. ( I think I need to get rid of some things
> like httpd). the Screen response is slow, but I think that has to do
> more with the frame burred driver for the vid. (1024x768x24) I let
> it up and running one night with only the screensaver going. The next
> day after work (17hrs or so) I check the mem again. It was over 110MB
> used. Most of it was in use my X (58MB) This is worrying me. The
> system is not touching the 133MB swap drive, but I don't understand
> how someone can run this if it is normal for it to used 110MB or ram!
>
> With that explained, I am wondering it it could be a hardware
> problem; Ram, or mother board. I have never ever, not once had an
> error in the system. 98 was always seen and reported 128MB of ram, as
> well as a few diagnostic programs. I have never had problems booting,
> nor a large amount of mysterious halts in Win or Linux. It just
> doesn't make since to me. I have a 166 at work with 95 and it stays
> up for 5 days at a time and never drops below 82% free. Please let me
> know of anything I should try or look at. I am up for just about
> anything now. I am tired of a Kick-butt system that thinks it's a
> grandmother or something.
>
> Thanks, and sorry about the length.
>
> Philip Dean
> -- Computer where invented to make life easier. Don't you agree?
------------------------------
From: Steverl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: palmpilot IIIx and Linux:
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 00:46:20 -0500
Am searching for help with my palmpilot and Linux. How does this work.
Thanks
steverl
------------------------------
From: "J Chan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.os.linux,alt.os.linux.caldera,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: making linux go away
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 22:47:26 -0700
YOu guys are great. The info here is priceless.
I've actually given up (for now, no time) on installing any variant of
linux, (Caldera 2.2, Red Hat 6.0, Mandrake, debian, etc.)
I've tried the various recommendations in the list, but my equipment, a
Compaq LTE 5000 laptop and a Compaq 486/66SX won't cooperate.
SOmeday, Linux will be simpler.
J CHan
John Sowden wrote in message <7k3p9g$3s5$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>I read the responses, just flames. The problem is you are asking a valid
>question. I also need to know how to remove Linux from a hard drive, as I
>am installing a new copy (caldera) and it doen't discuss in the newbie part
>about installing over an existing linux os.
>
>Can someone please take our requests seriously.
>
>
>
>adam howard wrote in message <7iv13k$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>>talk about a waste of bandwidth....do we really need a few dozen people to
>>give the same answer?
>>
>>
>>> How do I get rid of Linux in the boot sector (I guess that's where it
>>> is) once and for all?
>>
>>
>>
>
>
------------------------------
From: "Jack Coates" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: $mall, cheap firewall router
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 22:51:29 -0700
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:FYsa3.6343$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> According to John Hagen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> > OK, I have looked at some used 486 and 586 boxes. The 486's I saw had
> > flat desktop cases that looked almost as large as my 18"x17"x8" ATX
> > case. 586 was in a similarly-sized case.
> >
> > In fact, I can't remember seeing a "slim-line" case for one of these
> > ever. I must have found the "fat-line" models. :-)
> >
> > What would be the approximate dimensions of such a beast?
>
> Mine is piled so deeply I can't even get a ruler to it. ;-) I'd guess
> it is about 16" square and about 5" tall.
>
> > And, since you mention the Ethernet card, would it not be better to get
> > 10/100 Ethernet. If you're going to pay for 256 MB/s service (or better)
> > to your premises, why choke the bandwidth more than you have to from the
> > router to the network?
>
> Uh, DSL is 256 Kbps, not 256 Mbps! It is my understanding that the
> maximum speeds obtainable from DSL are about those of a T1 line, or
> about 1.5 Mbps, for which a 10 Mbps ethernet is still completely
> sufficient.
>
Actually, theoretical speeds go up to 9Mbps for ADSL, though your provider
will have set a PCR to keep you from swamping the network too quickly :-)
> Also, I am not completely sure the hardware setup for DSL (I have a
> cable modem) but chances are that the interface at the DSL box is only
> 10 Mbps ethernet anyways.
>
Probably. Your other choice is ATM25 -- oo, ATM to the desktop. How geeky is
that?
> -p.
------------------------------
From: "Jack Coates" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: $mall, cheap firewall router
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 22:56:41 -0700
>
> Yes and no. I believe 3com makes (made?) a 100Mb ISA card. I've
> never seen one, but I suspect they're expensive, and I'm dubious that
> they'd ever live up to their speed potential. If you're dead set on
> having 100Mb capability, you'd probably want to find a 486 board with
> PCI slots. Those might be a bit more difficult to locate, at which
> point it might be better to look for an old Pentium system then.
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
> Michael | mfaurot | The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines.
> Faurot | atww.org | They gave him love and he invented marriage.
That would be the 3C515-TX, driver at
http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/3c515.html
If you want PCI, get a P133 or better as the early implementations were
buggy.
--
"Linux is only free if your time has no value."
-Jamie Zawinski
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 00:56:39 -0400
From: Phil DeBecker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ASUS Motherboard problem
Peter Stein wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Phil DeBecker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Peter Stein wrote:
> >>
> >> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> >> Phil DeBecker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> >It's not that the kernel refuses to see the device, but that it sees the
> >> >device and doesn't understand it. There is a Unified UDMA Driver patch
> >> >at http://www.dyer.vanderbilt.edu/server/udma/ which you can apply to
> >> >kernel 2.2.9 to make it take advantage of the UDMA capabilities of the
> >> >ALI 1543 chipset on your P5A-B. Just patch the kernel source and
> >> >configure your kernel with Default Multimode On and Ali 15x3 Support
> >> >On. It worked for me; I get about 13mb/sec in hdparm -t on a P5A-B with
> >> >AMD K6-2/350 and a Western Digital 6.4GB UDMA drive.
> >>
> >> No it didn't work for you. 'hdparm -t' is not a valid test as it only
> >> tests read operations. See what happens when you try a write operation.
> >> What you'll see is errors in /var/log/messages. What you'll discover is
> >> that the driver gets kicked into PIO mode on any write operation. I have
> >> verified that DMA (not UDMA) does indeed work reliably. I've contacted
> >> the authors about this UDMA problem, but have not received a response.
> >> Until the UDMA problem gets fixed you're better off running DMA.
> >>
> >
> >I'm afraid that it did indeed work for me. I'm sorry that you're having
> >trouble, but please don't presume to tell me what I have and haven't
> >seen. I don't get any errors in my /var/log/messages file -- I checked
> >both that and dmesg regularly when I first installed the new kernel,
> >since I'm always suspicious of unofficial patches. The box has been up
> >for weeks at a time with no sign of trouble and no hard disk errors.
> >The same goes for several other users of identical machines at my
> >office. Perhaps there's something strange about your hardware that is
> >causing a problem -- I have a single hard disk alone on the primary IDE
> >channel, and as mentioned before it's a Western Digital UDMA drive. I
> >don't issue it any hdparm configuration commands, I just tell the kernel
> >to use multimode and UDMA by default when available. If your
> >configuration differs markedly from this (i.e. having a non-UDMA device
> >on the same channel with the UDMA drive) this could explain the
> >problems.
>
> One of the authors just contacted me and he is having trouble as well, with
> a Western Digital UDMA drive no less. My config isn't anything exotic:
>
> /dev/hda = 5 Gig Maxtor UDMA
> /dev/hdb = 17.2 Gig Maxtor UDMA
>
> So 2 UDMA devices are on the primary controller. This does not pose problems
> for WIN98 or OS2 Warp so I have to conclude that the problem is Linux specific.
> Perhaps we're using different patches or the problem is influenced by the BIOS
> rev. What is the date of your patch and which P5A-B BIOS rev are you using?
> Thanks.
I don't happen to remember what BIOS version I'm using, not that it
matters since the BIOS is only really used for booting. The kernel I'm
using on that particular machine is 2.2.9 with the
2.2.9-uniform-ide-6.19.hotel.patch; the particular IDE chipset on that
motherboard is (according to /proc/pci) M1533 Aladdin IV Rev 195.
That patch (and that kernel version) is a couple of weeks old. As I
said, that machine has yet to give me the slightest hint of trouble, and
at this point it's been running for a couple of weeks without a reboot.
It's quite possible that the driver has a bug exposed by handling more
than one UDMA drive per channel; as I said, I only use one drive per
channel so perhaps I just got lucky. In any case, it's worked great for
me so far.
Phil DeBecker
------------------------------
From: hazzmat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,linux.redhat.misc,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Diamond Viper TNT AGP + XWindows
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 02:29:38 -0400
Hi John,
If you have RedHat 6.0 on cd, then you _already_ have XFree86 version
3.3.3 (to be precise you have 3.3.3.1-49) In other words, you have what you need on
the cd in order to have your TNT looking good. The new driver at Nvidia includes
some neat extras for 3d acceleration and compatibility with Vmware's "windows in a
box" virtual machine. Therefore, the trip to Nvidia or xfree86.org is not necessary
at this point. And the first step to installing the Nvidia supplied version is to
install the _regular_ components of XFree anyway.
Your initial installation --if you opted for the workstation style setup
where almost everything is selected for you-- should have installed the basic
necessary rpm packages with an option of the xserver version you appropriate to your
card. Of course if you are not sure what the hell they're talking about you could
pick wrong. Like ppl are saying _SVGA_ ,that's the one you want. Check to see
whether it is installed in your filetree by runnning this command:
rpm -qa | grep XFree
There should be like eight packages listed, and your server will have this name:
XFree86-SVGA-3.3.3.-(minor version number matching the other X components)
Now there is a last hitch to installing support for your TNT when you do the
main install, and that is RedHat's XConfigurator program which comes just at the
end. Just before exiting, Xconfigurator will offer you a choice of 8, 16, or 24 bpp
and some different screen sizes under each resolution depth. This is somewhat
confusing (to me ) in that 24bpp is not supported by the SVGA server when running on
the TNT even though the card and the server will do 32bpp when setup to do so. So I
choose 16 in order to have _something_. To truly get the TNT setup right, you will
need to fetch two packages that the default installation does not run for you (but
which are on the cd. ) These are XF86Setup, a 16-color graphics based
point-and-click configuration utility, and the VGA16 xserver (which is only
necessary for XF86Setup's graphics.) In order to get them, put the cd in the tray
and run the following commands. (Stop me if you know all this already) in the
console, or an Xterm, enter:
mount /mnt/cdrom
cd /mnt/cdrom;ls
this will show you the top directories on the disk, and how exactly they are spelled
(useful to know)
cd RedHat/RPMS
ls -a RedHat/RPMS/X*
this will list all the Xfree-related RPMS, of which you only need a few.
rpm -ivh XFree86-XF86Setup-3.3.3.1-49.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh XFree86-VGA16-3.3.3.1-49.i386.rpm
if you didn't have the SVGA server, get it now.
Then run XF86Setup. All you have to do is type the name XF86Setup, (Don't be in X
windows when you do this! ) and click on the appropriate settings for your mouse,
keyboard and scroll down for your card and select 'mode-settings". Don't hit "done"
till you have entered settings for everything. I use 1280x1024 as the maximum
setting although the card is good for 1600 x 1200 on a sweet monitor. Select 32bpp
as the default. After you're "done", Setup will startup the Xserver and run a
tweaking utility called Xvidtune. That will allow you get the placement and
dimensions of the display adjusted to your liking.
If you have done the install but the SVGA server wasn't installed because you chose
something else, it is not necessary to reinstall the whole shebang. Just get the
server for SVGA and VGA16 and XF86Setup and everything will be fine.
Enjoy the ride!
John Hovell wrote:
> Hi -
>
> Thanks so much for your help. I really don't mean to be a bother, but I am at
> ftp.xfree96.org, and I don't really see what I am supposed to download.
>
> Do I need to download the source or can I just get binaries? I have RedHat 6.0
> w/ glibc 2.1 (I think that is the version). I am just a bit lost. Where are the
>
> packages you said I should download?
>
> If you could point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
> John
>
> mj wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Go to xfree86.org and download the latest SVGA server (3.3.3.1 or somewhat
> > like that). I works great with my ELSA ERAZOR II (Riva TNT too).
> > You won't find these server on DEBIAN 2.2 or REDHAT latest releases. Download
> > directly from www.xfree86.org (there you'll find a FTP site for download).
> > You'll at least need the following:
> >
> > SVGA
> > Xbin
> > Xcfg
> > Xlib
> > XVGA16 (XF86 setup is included here)
> > Xdoc
> > Xset
> > (i hope i'm not missing some package)
> >
> > untar this tar's over your existing /usr/XF86R6 directory, and run XF86Setup.
> > This may not be the best way to do it, but it works.
> >
> > Have Fun!
> > bye.
> >
> > >Does anyone know what chip set / if an X server exists (or where I can
> > >get one) for a Diamond Viper TNT AGP card (16 MB)?
> > >
> > >If anyone just knows a place where I can search for free (or even
> > >commercial, god forbid) X-servers, I would really appreciate it.
> > >
> > >TIA,
> > >John
> > >
--
Free egg.microsoft.com !
------------------------------
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