Linux-Hardware Digest #675, Volume #13 Thu, 5 Oct 00 04:13:07 EDT
Contents:
Re: IBM SCSI does not autostart (David_C)
Re: Compaq Proliant ("G Soft")
IDE Tape STT220000a and RH 6.2 (Bob Alberti)
Re: CDROM burning -I need to know also ("neognomic")
Multiple Monitors in Mandrake 7.1-anybody tried ? (David Wong)
Re: Multiple Monitors in Mandrake 7.1-anybody tried ? (Alejandro Guirao Blank)
Re: Red Hat Linux on Athlon 1000MHz/FIC Motherboard (Sven Bovin)
Lexmark Z11 ("Augusto Oliveira")
Re: IBM SCSI does not autostart (McManus Leo Root DSP Consultant)
Re: AAAAaaaaarrrgggggghhhhh (Bernhard Mogens Ege)
Exploding external modem. Stopped working suddenly (Sindh)
Re: Memory diagnostic program on linux ? (fred smith)
Re: BIOS Limitations on HP Vectra (James Richard Tyrer)
Re: BIOS Limitations on HP Vectra (James Richard Tyrer)
Re: Passing huge command lines to kernel??? (James Richard Tyrer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David_C <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: IBM SCSI does not autostart
Date: 05 Oct 2000 01:12:27 -0400
McManus Leo Root DSP Consultant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> I have an IBM DRVS 18Gb 10Krpm LVD wide SCSI. It is connected to an
> Adaptec 2940UW controller and has had no problems.
Is the card a 2940UW or a 2940U2W?
The UW is not an LVD card. The drive will still work, but it will run
as an UltraWide (non-LVD) drive.
Most LVD drives don't have on-board termination. Make sure your cable
has a terminator at the end, near the drive. A single-ended active
terminator will be sufficient, but you should get a multimode (LVD/SE),
so it will work if/when you choose to upgrade your UltraWide card to an
LVD (Ultra2 or Ultra160) card.
(If your card is really a U2W, then the drive will be running in LVD
mode, and a multimode terminator should be used.)
> I connected my HP CD Rewriter on the 50way connector with active
> termination and now my IBM hard drive does not start.
Here are some things to check:
- If you are using the internal 50-pin connector and the internal 68-pin
connector, you can not use the external connector. If you have any
external devices, you will have to attach the CDRW drive to the 68-pin
cable with via a non-terminating adapter instead of the 50-pin connector.
- If there is no external device, then using both internal connectors is
OK, but the card must terminate the upper half of the SCSI bus. Don't
trust auto-termination - it sometimes messes up. Use SCSISelect
(CTRL-A at POST time) to manually set the termination this way.
- The CDRW should have termination turned on. Or it should be on a
cable with an active terminator on it.
- If the card is really a U2W, keep in mind that a single ended device
(like the CDRW) will cause the bus to run in SE mode. This will
result in shorter cable length limits and will change your termination
requirements. If your LVD terminator is actually dual-mode, you won't
have a problem with this. In terms of cabling, UltraWide has a 3m
limit if all your cables have proper impedance, but there are a lot of
cheap cables out there - which will reduce your effective length limit
to about 1.5m.
> I have tried the IBM, again, on it's own, with and with the auto
> start. I have tried SE with active termination, but it will not start
> up. The CD Rewriter is OK.
Are you sure the CDRW is OK? Have you tried it without the hard drive?
Does it work this way?
Forcing the hard drive to SE mode shouldn't change anything - it should
atuo detect an SE bus and run in that mode on its own.
-- David
------------------------------
From: "G Soft" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Compaq Proliant
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 00:27:31 -0500
Follow up for more info.
Compaq Proliant 2000 with 5 drives and wanting to run raid level 5. Thanks
in advance
Phil
"G Soft" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hi,
> Anybody seen any links or info on installing any linux or bsd on older
> Compaq Proliant servers? Running into problems with the array controller
> and hoping that someone has possibly found their way through. Thanks in
> advance.
>
> Phil Schilling
>
>
------------------------------
From: Bob Alberti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: IDE Tape STT220000a and RH 6.2
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 05:22:30 GMT
I have a Seagate IDE Tape installed as hdd in RedHat 6.2 rpm + latest patches
system.
dMesg shows that the tape is being seen at boot time:
hdd: Seagate STT20000A, ATAPI TAPE drive
But I cannot use it for anything:
Sep 30 11:37:59 fw kernel: ide-tape: hdd: Unsupported command in request queue
Sep 30 11:37:59 fw kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 16:40 (hdd), sector 21498
Sep 30 11:38:08 fw kernel: ide-tape: ht0: I/O error, pc = 34, key = 3, asc = 30, ascq
= 0
and of course:
[alberti@fw ~]# mt -f /dev/nht0 status
/dev/nht0: Input/output error
Any hints? Any help? A bone to a poor dog?
Thanks in advance
Bob Alberti
------------------------------
From: "neognomic" <neognomic[at]yahoo[dot]com>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.mandrake
Subject: Re: CDROM burning -I need to know also
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 00:35:59 -0500
Wow, this is the very first time I have ever seen my system described by
someone else. Do great minds think alike? I have PIII450MHz, w/ 256MB ECC
SDRAM; the 500MHz wasn't readily available when I built the system. Do you
have the Plextor Ultraplex 32 TSi also? What's your video adapter?...
This is of great interest to me. A local store has the 7.0 Complete for
$25. I have the 7.1 GPL from , rpmfind.net...among others, but was thinking
the support might be worth $25 if I can get it for the 7.1 or 7.2 version.
7.1 is PDQ. 7.2 BETA still has a LOT of bugs but they are working on it -
it looks very promising.
75 minutes is OUTRAGEOUS! Okay, pretty bad anyway. Are you testing the
disk or is that only a burn time? Most problems that are not hardware
configuration errors are software configuration errors. Kinda a GNU-like
statement but the point is that I don't see any configuration information in
your post. Have you checked the config/setup?
Are you using the onboard SCSI controller (Adaptec AIC 7890) or an add-in
card?
Do you have firmware revision 1.04 for the 4220. If not, you should; it's
available for download from www.plextor.com .
I think that xcdroast is included on the install disk; not downloaded, in
other words.
It is on the MandrakeSoft 7.1 release as xcdroast-0.96ex-9mdk.i586.rpm
which is a newer release than the one you have.
The newest version is xcdroast-0.98-1mdk.i586.rpm . It is also on the
Mandrake BETA 7.2. install disc.
Personally, I would try the ...96ex-9 and/or the ...98-1 release, first.
Make sure you have all the supporting files. The "e-7" version is pretty
old.
The reqired files list you provided looks a little short. The 7.1 release
version(96ex-9) info et al is at
http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/mandrake//Mandrake/7.1/Mandrake/RPMS//xcdroast-
0.96ex-9mdk.i586.html .
" 2) " suggests one major question: Did the burn get done successfully
later on?
The thing that is odd is that most of the software I have seen can test the
burn by burning the info without actually turning on the laser. The yield
after such a test should be 99.9%.
Oh yea, another obvious thing. Plextor has a list of CD-R and RW discs that
they suggest you use. Are you using one of those? The list is in the back
of the manual. There's an updated list at the Plextor web site.
Poor quality discs WILL cause the problems you described. The software will
try over and over again to write to the disc; eventually, it gives up.
Sometimes there is not enough room on the disc to complete the burn because
so many sectors have been marked as unusable. The software stops because
the disc is full but only reports "write error". There may be(probably is)
Linux SW out there that can analyse the disc and give you a report but I
don't know what or where it is.
BTW, Imation is no longer on the list; don't know why. I've never had any
problem with them or my drive. In fact, I wish the 32tsi worked as good as
the 4220!
I hope this helps, but to answer your question: no easy way that I KNOW OF.
You could try different SW package and compare the results; they're all
free, you know. if you want to get involved, go to http://www.xcdroast.org/
and let them know what is going on. take a look at the new stuff while
you're there! Evwerthing you want to know about xcdroast is probably right
there. Site has not been updated in a while, though.
Let me know what happens; I'm agonna be using it too!
ng
==============================
"William A. Maniatty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hello All:
>
> I have a PlexWriter RW 4/2/20 CD scsi CD burner on a dual processor
> Asus P2BDS motherboard (Dual PIII 500's) and 256 MB of ECC RAM.
> I am using mandrake 7.0 from a boxed distribution set, xcdroast might
> and its supporting software could have been downloaded from say
rpmfind.net
> by the guy my vendor had install the cdwriter.
>
> I have 2 possibly related problems:
>
> 1) When I go to burn a CD using xcdroast it takes a long time
> (about 75 minutes) although xcdroast indicates the write speed is 4x.
>
> 2) I've been having difficulty getting my cd burner to do complete burns
> (often failing with write errors).
>
> xcdroast's front screeen claims that is is 0.96e and relies on:
> cdrecord-1.61
> mkisofs-1.12b4
>
> rpm -q, reports:
> cdrecord-1.8a29-3mdk
> mkisofs-1.12b5-3mdk
> xcdroast-0.96e-7mdk
>
>
> Is there a way to determine if this is due to driver software or a
> hardware error on the cd burner?
>
> Thanks:
>
> Bill Maniatty
------------------------------
From: David Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Multiple Monitors in Mandrake 7.1-anybody tried ?
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 05:47:53 GMT
Hello:
My AGP port is connected to one 17" NEC MultiSync A700+,
I want to get a PCI video card so I can connect another monitor (Acer
AcerView76i)
Anyone know if Linux support multiple monitors ?
Any comment is appreciated.
Thanks
Linux Newbie
------------------------------
From: Alejandro Guirao Blank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Multiple Monitors in Mandrake 7.1-anybody tried ?
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 08:10:24 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi,
I have tried something similar. I have a Matrog G400 Dual Head and got
Xfree86 4.0.1 to set up both
ports. It should be no problem to do the same with two graphic cards.
you have to insert a "Device" section
for every card. My /etc/X11/XF86Config looks like
# Device configured by xf86config:
Section "Device"
Identifier "G400_1"
Driver "mga"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 0
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "G400_2"
Driver "mga"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection
where Driver is the name of the driver module (can be two different
ones) and Bus Id is the PCI Id.
You can get this by looking into /var/log/messages or with 'lspci' as
root.
You have to edit the ServerLayout Section at the bottom of the file
also. Again mine looks like
# **********************************************************************
# ServerLayout sections.
# **********************************************************************
# Any number of ServerLayout sections may be present. Each describes
# the way multiple screens are organised. A specific ServerLayout
# section may be specified from the X server command line with the
# "-layout" option. In the absence of this, the first section is used.
# When now ServerLayout section is present, the first Screen section
# is used alone.
Section "ServerLayout"
# The Identifier line must be present
Identifier "Simple Layout"
# Each Screen line specifies a Screen section name, and optionally
# the relative position of other screens. The four names after
# primary screen name are the screens to the top, bottom, left and right
# of the primary screen. In this example, screen 2 is located to the
# right of screen 1.
Screen "Screen 1" LeftOf "Screen 2"
Screen "Screen 2"
# Each InputDevice line specifies an InputDevice section name and
# optionally some options to specify the way the device is to be
# used. Those options include "CorePointer", "CoreKeyboard" and
# "SendCoreEvents".
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
And then voila... you can use two monitors under X. The only thing I
can't get to work, without tricks, is KDE.
I can only have it on two displays if I start two instances of it and
that's not very useful. So if you find
out how to make that work tell me !
cu
Alex
------------------------------
From: Sven Bovin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Red Hat Linux on Athlon 1000MHz/FIC Motherboard
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 08:16:19 +0200
Craig Schock wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> Last night I installed RH Linux 6.1 on my new Athlon 1000MHz
> system
> (the motherboard is an FIC). The install goes just fine. When I try > to
> boot after the install, however, I get the following error:
>
> Disabling CPUID Serial Number ... General Protection Fault: 0000
> CPU: 0
> EIP: 0010:[<c0236108>]
> EFLAGS: 00010282
>
> [...]
>
> Kernel panic: Attempted to kill the idle task
> in swapper task: not syncing
>
> At this point, the computer just freezes. Does anyone know what
> the
> heck is going on here? It looks to me like the chip is GPFing when
> the
> OS tries to disable the CPU ident. Can I disable/prevent the attempt > to
> disable the CPU ident?
>
> I'm planning to get RH7 today and try it out as well.
>
> Any information that anyone can provide is greatly appreciated!
>
> Cheers,
> Craig
This is a known problem with RedHat. The pre-compiled
kernel tries to disable the CPUID, but an Athlon does not
have one (IIRC only PIII's and maybe late PII's have one).
The way to circumvent this is to add a bootparameter
(it is something like ix86_serial_disable=1, I don't
remember exactly, you should be able to find the name
doing a search in this news group) and then recompiling
your kernel accordingly.
HTH
Sven
--
===========================================================
sven dot bovin at chem dot kuleuven dot ac dot be
===========================================================
------------------------------
From: "Augusto Oliveira" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Lexmark Z11
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 03:18:21 -0300
Hi folks,
Who knows how to install a Z11 on Red Hat?
Thanks
Augusto
------------------------------
From: McManus Leo Root DSP Consultant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: IBM SCSI does not autostart
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 09:13:05 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I have removed the CDRewriter and reverted back to the original setup which
has worked for 1.5 years, but it does not work. Also I have noted that it does
not get warm, so suspect something a bit more 'terminal'!
Unless yous have some more suggestions, then pls relpy.
Note the CDRewriter is fine, I have had no problems burning my first CD.
Thanks for your help.
Leo
David_C wrote:
> McManus Leo Root DSP Consultant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> > I have an IBM DRVS 18Gb 10Krpm LVD wide SCSI. It is connected to an
> > Adaptec 2940UW controller and has had no problems.
>
> Is the card a 2940UW or a 2940U2W?
>
> The UW is not an LVD card. The drive will still work, but it will run
> as an UltraWide (non-LVD) drive.
>
> Most LVD drives don't have on-board termination. Make sure your cable
> has a terminator at the end, near the drive. A single-ended active
> terminator will be sufficient, but you should get a multimode (LVD/SE),
> so it will work if/when you choose to upgrade your UltraWide card to an
> LVD (Ultra2 or Ultra160) card.
>
> (If your card is really a U2W, then the drive will be running in LVD
> mode, and a multimode terminator should be used.)
>
> > I connected my HP CD Rewriter on the 50way connector with active
> > termination and now my IBM hard drive does not start.
>
> Here are some things to check:
>
> - If you are using the internal 50-pin connector and the internal 68-pin
> connector, you can not use the external connector. If you have any
> external devices, you will have to attach the CDRW drive to the 68-pin
> cable with via a non-terminating adapter instead of the 50-pin connector.
>
> - If there is no external device, then using both internal connectors is
> OK, but the card must terminate the upper half of the SCSI bus. Don't
> trust auto-termination - it sometimes messes up. Use SCSISelect
> (CTRL-A at POST time) to manually set the termination this way.
>
> - The CDRW should have termination turned on. Or it should be on a
> cable with an active terminator on it.
>
> - If the card is really a U2W, keep in mind that a single ended device
> (like the CDRW) will cause the bus to run in SE mode. This will
> result in shorter cable length limits and will change your termination
> requirements. If your LVD terminator is actually dual-mode, you won't
> have a problem with this. In terms of cabling, UltraWide has a 3m
> limit if all your cables have proper impedance, but there are a lot of
> cheap cables out there - which will reduce your effective length limit
> to about 1.5m.
>
> > I have tried the IBM, again, on it's own, with and with the auto
> > start. I have tried SE with active termination, but it will not start
> > up. The CD Rewriter is OK.
>
> Are you sure the CDRW is OK? Have you tried it without the hard drive?
> Does it work this way?
>
> Forcing the hard drive to SE mode shouldn't change anything - it should
> atuo detect an SE bus and run in that mode on its own.
>
> -- David
------------------------------
Subject: Re: AAAAaaaaarrrgggggghhhhh
From: Bernhard Mogens Ege <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 07:21:50 GMT
>>>>> "Typhon" == Typhon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> This seems an obvious question but I'll ask anyway. Did the freezes begin
> after you installed RH7.0?
> Did any other aspect of your system change before you first noticed the
> freezes?
> Something must have changed.
> Maybe trying installing RH7.0 fresh. Format your drives and start over.
> My two cents. Good luck.
> Eric
Thank you for trying to help me, but I cannot remember quite exactly
what I did when the first freeze occured, but I think I upgraded the
Arla client. This however might have clashed with the upgrade to
100mbit/sec network (not me upgrading, but my network interface
autonegotiated up to 100mbit/sec instead of normal 10mbit(/sec). Soon
thereafter I messed around with X4.0 (soon after 4.0.1), nvidia driver
didn't add much to instability (execpt when using kernel 2.2.17).
I have now had it running (console 1 (non X), but X was active on
console 7), and this morning, it hadn't crashed on me (thats a
first). I disabled USB in the bios (nvidia doesn't share interrupt
with USB now).
Is it possible to place the interrupts myself? I can't move the USB
interface (motherboard based) and the graphicscard is AGP (hence
unmoveable).
regards,
Bernhard Ege
> "Bernhard Mogens Ege" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Ahh, needed some air.
>>
>> My system keeps freezing on me. Has been running stable for 9 month
>> and now it freezes at least once a day.
>>
>> The problem might be:
>>
>> Arla client (free AFS client). No running anymore.
>> Net speed upped to 100Mbit/Sec.
>> XFree86-4.0 (previous 3.3.5).
>> Machine relocation (moved it a bit).
>> Upgrade from RedHat 6.0 to 7.0 (in parts, but inbetween a complete
> reinstall
>> to rh70beta occured).
>> MTRR is being used by Xserver.
>> I dont know what!
>>
>> System:
>>
>> AMD Athlon 500
>> MSI 6167 (AMD750/AMD7409 chipset)
>> 128Mb PC100 RAM
>> Western Digital 18Gb disc
>> Yamaha YMF724 soundcard.
>> TNT2
>> 3Com 3c905b NIC.
>>
>> I have switched to the following hardware:
>>
>> New mainboard (same as old) -> no difference.
>> GeForce2MX -> no difference.
>> RealTek 8139 NIC -> no difference.
>>
>> I have disabled APM (as much as the bios allows).
>>
>> Software:
>>
>> RedHat 7.0, upgraded from RedHat 7.0 beta. This worked for several
>> Intel machines I have installed/upgraded (P3-500 to P3-800, via
>> chipset, TNT2 and GeForce2GTS, 3Com 3c905C).
>>
>> Disabling OSS sound driver does not help.
>> AGP disabled (for nvidia driver).
>> Compiled kernel myself (redhat kernel 2.2.16-22). Precompiled kernel
>> doesn't help.
>> No DMA on HD (chipset not recognised by kernel).
>> USB is running (USB hub attached, no other devices attached).
>> NTP is running (stopping doesn't help).
>>
>> RH70 beta installation was more stable than RH70 final.
>> Syslog never contains any errors that cannot be explained.
>>
>> Windows98SE is very stable. It really is.
>>
>> I wish Linux was able to store information somewhere in memory/on
>> disc/floppy/non-volatile memory about a kernel crash.
>>
>> Running X doesn't let you see anything on the console.
>>
>> I have obviously missed something, since the system keeps being this
>> unstable, but I have no idea what.
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> Bernhard Ege
--
Bernhard Mogens Ege, M.Sc.E.E. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Medical Informatics and Image Analysis Direct call: +45 96 35 87 82
Institute of Electronic Systems Switchboard: +45 96 35 80 80
Aalborg University Fax: +45 98 15 40 08
Frederik Bajersvej 7, D1-203 Homepage:
DK-9220 Aalborg East http://www.vision.auc.dk/~bme
==============================================================================
Home: Hadsund Landevej 454, DK-9260 Gistrup, Phone: +45 96365086, +45 22749713
------------------------------
From: Sindh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Exploding external modem. Stopped working suddenly
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 07:21:29 GMT
Hi folks
I have a cheap noname external v90 modem which until lastnight worked
perfectly. I used it for a while and then disconnected from the net.
When I try to get back on to the net it just refused to start.
/var/log/messages says
ATZ is giving a responce ERROR and says bad init string. I tried to find
out which part of rp3 , usernet config is this ATZ command living in to
remove it. I tried the modem under windows and it is working ok. I
suppose windows does not try to ATZ it. I also tried kppp which does
not allow me to use it with out ATZ. It keeps hanging.
Is there a way round it? Anybody else had this problem with modems? Even
under linux minicom can reset the modem and dialout through
atdt1232131.... ATZ gives a response of error.
Please help.
Sreekant
--
A man needs to sleep for 36 hours a day atleast.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.admin
From: fred smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Memory diagnostic program on linux ?
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 22:11:35 GMT
Tom Brinkman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: In article <8rfa3v$4qb$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Takashi Ichihara"
: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> Does anyone know is there any "memory diagnostic program"
:> which runs on linux OS ?
:> Thanks for the information.
:> Takashi
: Best one:
: http://reality.sgi.com/cbrady_denver/memtest86/
: Tom
Though it doesn't run "ON" Linux. A standalone tool, such as memtest86,
is much better than one that tries to run as an unprivileged user task
anyway. Download memtest86, build the disk, boot and let it run overnight
if at all possible.
--
---- Fred Smith -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
=============================== Romans 5:8 (niv) ==============================
------------------------------
From: James Richard Tyrer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: BIOS Limitations on HP Vectra
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 07:44:13 GMT
seldan wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am getting ready to configure an old HP Vectra 5/xxx series 5 machine
> (200MHz) as an FTP server running linux.
>
> I am planning on installing two 20.5GB hard drives into the computer,
> however I was notified that the BIOS may have difficulty recognizing them.
> After searching around, I discovered that the BIOS will not support over 8GB
> without an upgrade, provided on the HP Support site. However, this upgrade
> will only extend the limit to 12GB. The wording from HP is "Disks larger
> than 8GB, and smaller than 12GB... as a boot disk" "Disks larger than 12GB
> and smaller than 30GB... supported under WinNT4 as 2nd disk."
>
> My question is... would these limitations still apply if I run linux on the
> machine? I am under the impression that they would not but it will be some
> time before I can get 2 20GB drives to test and I'd rather avoid the wait
> and look into newer hardware alternatives if this is bound to fail.
>
> Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as it would help me get linux
> up and running for my company!!!
>
> Regards,
>
> Tom.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux doesn't use the BIOS to access your HD except when booting. So don't
worry about it.
Except, you should make a seperate "/boot" partation and this needs to be
within the first 1024 cylinders. Some new versions don't have this problem,
but better to be safe ... .
JRT
------------------------------
From: James Richard Tyrer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: BIOS Limitations on HP Vectra
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 07:45:35 GMT
seldan wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am getting ready to configure an old HP Vectra 5/xxx series 5 machine
> (200MHz) as an FTP server running linux.
>
> I am planning on installing two 20.5GB hard drives into the computer,
> however I was notified that the BIOS may have difficulty recognizing them.
> After searching around, I discovered that the BIOS will not support over 8GB
> without an upgrade, provided on the HP Support site. However, this upgrade
> will only extend the limit to 12GB. The wording from HP is "Disks larger
> than 8GB, and smaller than 12GB... as a boot disk" "Disks larger than 12GB
> and smaller than 30GB... supported under WinNT4 as 2nd disk."
>
> My question is... would these limitations still apply if I run linux on the
> machine? I am under the impression that they would not but it will be some
> time before I can get 2 20GB drives to test and I'd rather avoid the wait
> and look into newer hardware alternatives if this is bound to fail.
>
> Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as it would help me get linux
> up and running for my company!!!
>
> Regards,
>
> Tom.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux doesn't use the BIOS to access your HD except when booting. So
don't
worry about it.
Except, you should make a separate "/boot" partition and this needs to
be
within the first 1024 cylinders. Some new versions don't have this
problem,
but better to be safe ... .
JRT
------------------------------
From: James Richard Tyrer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Passing huge command lines to kernel???
Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 07:51:56 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Dear Linux Hackers,
>
> Earlier, I asked how to get a RAID system working with a four drives connected
> to two Promise Ultra66 controllers.
>
> It turns out that to detect the drives properly, I need a boot option like
> this:
> append="hde=7473,255,63 hdg=7473,255,63 hdi=7473,255,63 hdk=7473,255,63"
> (The numbers are the C/H/S values for a Maxtor 60G drive.)
>
> Well it boots OK, except it only sees the command line for the first two
> drives! After this it bails out with an error message:
> ide_setup: hdi=7473,255 -- BAD OPTION
> So, drives three and four are detected wrong.
>
> I noticed that this command line (with the other stuff the kernel adds) is
> exactly 80 characters long. Is it a coincidence? Is there any way to parse a
> longer bootprompt???
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Richard
>
> PS: I'm running 2.4.0-test8 if that matters.
It is possible that you don't need the C/H/S values if you use LBA. Add the
global parameter "linear" to your "lilo.conf" file and run "/sbin/lilo".
JRT
------------------------------
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