Linux-Hardware Digest #417, Volume #14 Wed, 28 Feb 01 20:13:11 EST
Contents:
Re: Can't access scsi drives ("D. Stimits")
Re: Need LOTS of disks: Promise ATA RAID?? (Jonathan Buzzard)
Re: Copy Playstation 1 games in Linux? (Walter Francis)
Re: Best RAID controller for Linux (Hubba Bubba)
Re: Best RAID controller for Linux (Hubba Bubba)
Re: Help with LILO and ATA 100 on dual (John in SD)
Re: Need help for soundblaster live card on redhat linux 6.2 ("David Christensen")
Re: SB live, *has* to be module? ("David Christensen")
Internal modem ("T A R T")
Re: USB Harddrives? (John Hong)
Re: Should I abandon SCSI? ("Ron Reaugh")
Re: Linux partitioning question (Tim Moore)
What UPSs does RHL7 support out of the box? (Ronald Cole)
Re: Linux partitioning question (Floyd Davidson)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 14:10:39 -0700
From: "D. Stimits" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Can't access scsi drives
"D. Stimits" wrote:
>
> > Mike Veenhuizen wrote:
> >
> > I have a system with two scsi 9M hard drives. The second one was added
> > just two weeks ago. I installed Slackware on this drive. I edited
> > lilo.conf and ran lilo, so that I could boot either linux on sda3,
> > linux on sdb1, or windows on sda1. It all worked perfectly. On the
> > weekend I recompiled the kernel on sdb1, and ran zlilo. After I
> > rebooted I had a kernel panic, with the system unable to access the
> > hard drive. I booted up my floppy linux rescue disk, and when I ran
> > fdisk I received the message "Cannot access /dev/sda, or cannot access
> > /dev/sdb. If I tried to mount any of the drive partitions, I got the
> > message " device /dev/sd* is not a block device". I think the problem
> > is with the scsi bus, but windows still works fine, and can access,
> > format, partition etc. any of the drives. I have been using linux for
> > a number of years, and this is a first. Any help?
>
> I've seen something similar. It seems that the failed boot device causes
> the scsi controller to not register the existence of the drive. Boot
> floppies based on regular boot allow the drives to be visible and run
> fine, but rescue cd's and rescue floppies seem to not see the drives. If
> you run under a rescue though, even without the device being found, I
> have had lilo -v -u succeed in uninstalling the failed boot sector
> (reinstating the original).
One note I forgot. The lilo -v -u is preceeded by a chroot to the mount
point of the drive onto the rescue media. Usually /mnt/sysimage/ or
something similar.
>
> As to why it panicked, perhaps you didn't compile in the scsi support
> needed. Modules only work if the initial ramdisk is used, with mkinitrd
> (modules on the scsi drive can't be found without the ability to access
> scsi in the first place, but that ability requires scsi access for
> modules to tell it how to...catch 22). I always compile scsi directly
> into a kernel, versus modules.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jonathan Buzzard)
Crossposted-To: uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Need LOTS of disks: Promise ATA RAID??
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 21:39:45 +0000
In article <9Y%m6.318486$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Leo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Holy huge thread!
>
> Sorry, I couldn't refuse to apply my .02
>
> Guys guys guys... Each technology has it's place. IDE is definitely your
> low cost point of entry controller. I'd say good for some people looking
> for inexpensive, and perhaps lower performance/scalability requirements.
>
> SCSI controllers, and SCSI RAID controllers definitely enable connection of
> larger numbers of disks and offload I/O specific tasks from the CPU to the
> controller. Yes, there are some companies out there making some low cost
> IDE array type devices. Perhaps there are fits for this, but call me
> skeptical about trusting my business critical servers to an IDE RAID (or IDE
> RAID converted back to SCSI! seems like there would have to be some
> performance hit with that translation?). BTW - Are any of these IDE RAID
> solutions endorsed by the Raid Advisory Board? I haven't looked.
No more than doing SCSI-SCSI that a hardware SCSI RAID device would do.
Note that there is little difference between IDE and SCSI drives.
> Someone earlier mentioned fibre channel as an alternative. If someone is
> worried about cost enough to consider launching some critical app with an
> IDE RAID solution of any magnitude to save $, you can forget FC. The HBA's
> alone will probably cost more than the entire IDE solution :) Oh yeah, and
> on the fibre note-- someone mentioned "Not unless distance is an issue".
> That's very smart and true. Fibre channel DOES NOT always outperform SCSI.
> Remember, SCSI uses many parallel paths where fibre is a serial type
> delivery that passes SCSI protocols. So, although it's 'faster', due to the
> encapsulation and de-capsulation if you will, of the SCSI protocol to pass
> it over fibre channel depending on your I/O block size it may not be faster.
> Typically small block I/O is faster with SCSI. Typically when you get into
> block sizes of 16 or 32K, fibre will win. Point is, it's more expensive and
> not always faster-- but can be. Also, fibre rules for distance and
> connectivity... you can fan out through a switch fabric and connect all
> kinds of servers.
The latest fiber channel is somewhat faster than SCSI. It all keeps changing
I know.
> Anyway, for the guy who originally asked about his IDE situation-- (you sure
> opened a can of worms! :)) IDE could be fine. It depends on the
> requirements including availability, performance, connectivity, scalability,
> and ease of management.
>
> I don't think IDE is for anything high end that needs the requirements
> stated above. I don't see EMC running out to put IDE drives in their
> enterprise storage systems, or Hitachi, or IBM, or Compaq, (MTI, Sun,
> NetApp, blah blah blah....) it's just not the right tool...
Depends I would not describe 300GB as high end these days.
>
> EVERYTHING HAS IT'S PLACE. Understand your requirements and deploy the
> right technology. Use the right tool. Using IDE for mission critical
> storage requirments is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Using
> Ultra160MB/s with spanky-fast 10K drives with all kinds of redundacy for
> something non-critical reminds be of that credit card commercial where they
> are trying to get the cat out of the tree "It's a Calico, we need more air
> support!". What about a ladder? yeah, IDE's your fit.
What's wrong with the 15k drives then.
JAB.
--
Jonathan A. Buzzard Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Northumberland, United Kingdom. Tel: +44(0)1661-832195
------------------------------
From: Walter Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: rec.games.video.sony-playstation
Subject: Re: Copy Playstation 1 games in Linux?
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 22:00:06 GMT
Julie Brandon wrote:
> I would imagine you could use cdrdao?
> cdrdao read-cd psx.toc - to read the cd
> cdrdao write psx.toc - to write the cd
I tried that.. :( I found a website describing using cdrdao and how to
patch playstation games, followed it exactly, and still nothing. I've
tried readcd, and when I finish compiling KDE 2.1 I'm going to try dd..
I'm beginning to think my modchip installation is at fault.. It'll boot
original games with no problems, but my backups just get to the black
screen after the white screen with Sony logo.. :(
When I get a chance I'm borrowing a game from a friend that he knows
works in his modified playstation to see if I didn't install the modchip
properly.
--
Walter Francis
http://theblackmoor.net Powered by Red Hat Linux 7.0
------------------------------
From: Hubba Bubba <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.dev.raid
Subject: Re: Best RAID controller for Linux
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 22:04:11 GMT
Funny thing-
I don't see any specific drivers for *any* version of Linux.
What kind of support is that? Please spare me the "compile it
yourself" drivel.
On 25 Feb 2001 21:18:29 GMT, Juergen Sauer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>http://www.icp-vortex.com
------------------------------
From: Hubba Bubba <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.dev.raid
Subject: Re: Best RAID controller for Linux
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 22:06:35 GMT
Wow.... Tier 1 support for good old 6.1. Congratulations. :)
Apparently, you've never used a 2100S or 3000S series Adaptec
controller. Can you say drivers?
On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 05:41:14 GMT, "Leo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>That's great feedback...
>
>I can only say as a consultant who has tried a lot of controllers in
>multiple OS's (Linux, and Novell/NT) ICP has been the best. I'm certainly
>not slamming others, I've successfully deployed many other array controllers
>including Adaptec, Compaq SMART Array Controllers, HP NetRAID, etc. But,
>ICP has been the best overall. Best performing, best support, and best ease
>of setup our consulting team has experienced.
>
>Since we started www.icp-order.com, I've asked customers where they heard of
>ICP and why they made an ICP decision. One of the latest responses I
>received was "We saw ICP at Linuxworld and were impressed. After having
>numerous issues with Adaptec (and he mentioned driver related issues) we
>decided to try ICP.
>
>Actually, ICP is the ONLY Tier 1 RAID controller approved by Redhat. Check
>out http://www.redhat.com/support/hardware/intel/61/rh6.1-hcl-i.ld-5.html
>and scroll to section 5.6.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Leo J. Squire
>www.icp-order.com
>High Availability, Now Highly Available
>
>
>"Vincent Fox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:97e0ko$s6b$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> In <97bsr5$40k$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Juergen Sauer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>writes:
>>
>> *snip*
>>
>> I've started using the 3Ware IDE RAID controller and been
>> very impressed with it so far. Using a pair of IBM 75GXP drives
>> in mirroring mode, disk reads are very fast. The mirroring
>> works as advertised. I can "fail" a drive by unplugging it
>> and it keeps running. Rebuilding onto the failed drive
>> to return to full mirroring functionality can be done while
>> the system is running. Sweet.
>>
>> Only weird thing I note is that if I put my Tekram D390U3W card
>> in with a Seagate X15 drive it seems I cannot access it. I think
>> the 3Ware and the Tekram card conflict.
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Who needs horror movies when we have Microsoft"?
>> -- Christine Comaford, PC Week, 27/9/95
>
------------------------------
From: John in SD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Help with LILO and ATA 100 on dual
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 22:13:06 GMT
On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 11:41:25 +0100, Luigi Cavallo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
>I just installed RH 7.0 on a Dual PIII with ATA 100 HDs on the ATA100
>ide2.
>However, when I try to reboot from the HD the box hangs before arriving
>at the lilo prompt. Actually, it hangs with the first two uppercase
>charcaters of lilo, as
>
>LI
This means the LILO first stage loader finished successfully, but was unable
to chain to the second stage loader. This problem most often occurs when the
LILO boot installer (/sbin/lilo) guesses the device code of the files in /boot
incorrectly.
You will probabably have to determine the device codes yourself and add lines
such as:
disk=/dev/hdX
bios=0x80
You will have to fill in the X, and the correct device code.
--John
>
>If I boot from the floppy made during installation, and by feeding linux
>ide2=...
>it boots properly.
>
>I tried to install lilo both in the MBR as well as on /dev/hde, but the
>box behaves the same.
>
>Any suggestions ?
>
>HW
>MicroStar 694D MB
>2 PIII CPU
>2 30 GB Quantum Fireball lct20 ATA 100 HDs on ide2 and ide3
>
>TIA
>
>luigi
LILO version 21.7 (24-Feb-2001) source at
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/boot/lilo
patches at ftp://brun.dyndns.org/pub/linux/lilo
------------------------------
From: "David Christensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Need help for soundblaster live card on redhat linux 6.2
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 14:29:15 -0800
Ed:
> I am having some problems with SoundBlaster live sound card on redhat
> Linux 6.2 ...
I've been beating my head against the SBLive! for the past week, and
wrote up what I've learned thus far:
http://www.holgerdansk.com/download/SBLive-NOTES-1.1.1.1.txt
HTH,
--
David Christensen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "David Christensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SB live, *has* to be module?
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 14:31:31 -0800
Wim:
> I compiled a new kernel with the SBlive ...
I've been beating my head against the SBLive! for the past week, and
wrote up what I've learned thus far:
http://www.holgerdansk.com/download/SBLive-NOTES-1.1.1.1.txt
HTH,
--
David Christensen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "T A R T" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Internal modem
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 13:01:09 +1300
Hi,
Can anyone recommend a 56K internal modem which will work under mandrake 7.1, please?
Thanks.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hong)
Subject: Re: USB Harddrives?
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 23:58:53 +0000 (UTC)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kenneth Crudup) writes:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] says:
>>A better question would be, "Who on Earth would be STUPID enough to
>>think that putting a hard drive on USB is a good idea?"
>Well, FWIW, my USB Zip drive (essentially a hard disk) works so well under
>Linux I ditched my old SCSI one.
>It's not about "speed" as much as "portability", I'll bet. Some of those
>USB HDs are about the size of a hardcover book- great for when you need
>to carry a few GB between places.
Plus, what I've purchased was just a USB Hard drive enclosure.
Meaning that I can stick any 3.5" IDE hard drive in there and use it like
a removable media drive. When its full, I'll just stick in another hard
drive. Nice little portable backup device to offload unnecessary files
(ie. MP3's).
------------------------------
From: "Ron Reaugh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Re: Should I abandon SCSI?
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 00:09:27 GMT
NewsReader2 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message ...
>
>"Ron Reaugh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:7g5n6.6016$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>
>> J.B. Nicholson-Owens wrote in message ...
>> >Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
>> >> RAID 0 is great for high performance desktops, but if you want a
>> >> storage solution that's also *reliable*, it's useless.
>> >
>> >I wouldn't say it's useless--that depends on the data stored on the
>volume
>> >and how well the site has prepared for failure. But I agree--RAID 0 is
a
>> >high price to pay for failure.
>>
>>
>> Nope, just keep good backups like is required with a single HD.
>
>Not good enough at 3:00pm the next day!
>
>Just keep to a single drive for greater reliability and stability.
>
>Choose 10K+ SCSI to improve workstation performance
All nonsense. Nothing supplants a good backup scheme at 3:00 or at any
other time. Fast inexpensive EIDE RAID 0 plus an appropriate
backup/checkpoint scheme is just as reliable as a SCSI solution.
------------------------------
From: Tim Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Linux partitioning question
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 00:42:48 GMT
> > place for /tmp to physically be located. Both /tmp and /usr/tmp
> > should be symlinks to /var/tmp.
> >
> How would I symlink /tmp and /usr/tmp to /var/tmp when they seem to be
> created automatically when I do the install?? (Im a newbie)
# go to single user mode
init 1
# move anything you want to save to /var/tmp
cd /tmp
cp -av . /var/tmp
cd /usr/tmp
cp -av . /var/tmp
# remove the old directories
rm -rvf /tmp /usr/tmp
# make new links
cd /
ln -s /var/tmp
cd /usr
ln -s /var/tmp
# sanity check
ls -l / | grep tmp
ls -l /usr | grep tmp
# reboot
init 6
--
timothymoore
bigfoot
com
------------------------------
From: Ronald Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: What UPSs does RHL7 support out of the box?
Date: 28 Feb 2001 16:52:33 -0800
I've looked at the UPS howto, but it's well over three years old.
Surely the state of the art has advanced since then!
So, what UPSs does RHL7 support out of the box? /etc/inittab has a
blurb about powerd, but I am unable to find an executable called
"powerd" on either disc 1 or disc 2.
What's the story?
--
Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA 93556-1412
Ronald Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Phone: (760) 499-9142
President, CEO Fax: (760) 499-9152
My GPG fingerprint: C3AF 4BE9 BEA6 F1C2 B084 4A88 8851 E6C8 69E3 B00B
------------------------------
From: Floyd Davidson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Linux partitioning question
Date: 28 Feb 2001 15:08:37 -0900
"Cjv" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"Floyd Davidson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rod Smith) wrote:
>
>> For instance, in most of the multi-partition examples shown in
>> this thread there have been both a /tmp and a /var partition.
>> That is an unnecessary waste of disk space. The /var partition
>> is going to suffer high fragmentation, which is one reason it
>> should be a separate partition, but that also makes it a great
>> place for /tmp to physically be located. Both /tmp and /usr/tmp
>> should be symlinks to /var/tmp.
>>
> How would I symlink /tmp and /usr/tmp to /var/tmp when they seem to be
>created automatically when I do the install?? (Im a newbie)
Let the install do whatever it does, but once it is finished,
part of customizing your system can be to change whatever the
install did, to what you want. The only thing you _don't_
want the install to do is make a separate partition for /tmp,
unless of course you want it to stay that way (and I can't see
any reason one would want both a /tmp and a /var partition).
>> Other obvious candidates for locating on other partitions with a
>> symlink are /usr/local, /usr/X11, /opt, and where ever it is
>> that emacs/xemacs or tex are located.
>>
>> Likewise the /home directory can actually be on one or more
>> other partitions. /home itself can be a symlink, but so can
>> each user's directory if that is useful (as might be for the
>> /home/ftp directory, as an example).
>>
>> Hence, while it is possible to get / or /usr partitions too
>> small, they will be too small to even install the first time if
>> that is true. If those partitions are large enough to actually
>> manage a functional install to begin with, they *never* require
>> resizing.
>
>Floyd, If I were to do a fresh install then, how many original
>partitions do you suggest I create? Then how would I use
>symlinks (as you describe)? Would this approach be harder to
>restore if one of the partitions became unstable?
It is very difficult for me to suggest what would be best for
you! It might be that for you, one big partition actually is
the best. Certainly if you want to learn "proper" (whatever
that is) UNIX systems administration you will want a number of
"unnecessary" partitions. You might want two or more root
partitions, each with different distributions on them, as an
example.
Personally, I would _at least_ want a separate /, /boot, /var
and some number of other miscellaneous partitions that I usually
mount on /u1, /u2, /u3, etc. (Note there is no separate /usr
partition listed, though usually I do like a separate /usr
partition too. I also like a separate /usr/local.) I almost
always make /home a symlink to a directory on a /u* partition.
(I also like to have at least 2 swap partitions, each on a
different disk...)
If you have a backup system that is restricted in size, it is
very handy to limit partitions such as /home to some size that
allows the entire partition to fit on one tape.
Symlinks are handy when you discover, six months after you did
an install, that your 500Mb /usr partition just isn't large
enough. There is no need to re-partition the disk in order to
have more room to add new software. If the disk itself is too
small, just add another disk. But whether another disk is added
or whether all the extra space on the existing disk is in the
wrong partition makes little difference. The point is you can
use symlinks rather than go through the pain of re-partitioning
the disk.
--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://www.ptialaska.net/~floyd>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
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