Question. Does anyone know if Puppy Retro 4.2.1 supports
Adaptec SCSI controllers?
I have an old Dell Optiplex 610 with dual Xeon 550 CPU's and
two 36GB SCSI drives and am considering loading Puppy on it.
I know SCSI controllers are old but I thought I would ask.
Puppy and Adaptec SCSI Controllers
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Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
Out of the box, no. 4.21-retro does not carry Adaptec scsi drivers. Neither does 4.21 regular.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... 6-SCSI.iso does, though.
Maggotspawn's 420-rt-smp carries loadable kernel-module (.ko) Adaptec drivers, so will see the drives on my 39160. Hotpup sometimes finds them and displays the icons, sometimes it doesn't. But they are always accessible through PMount. But can't boot from them. To boot from scsi the driver must be compiled into the kernel, not as a .ko.
420-rt-smp runs hellaciously fast on my dual-Xeon. Stable, too.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... 6-SCSI.iso does, though.
Maggotspawn's 420-rt-smp carries loadable kernel-module (.ko) Adaptec drivers, so will see the drives on my 39160. Hotpup sometimes finds them and displays the icons, sometimes it doesn't. But they are always accessible through PMount. But can't boot from them. To boot from scsi the driver must be compiled into the kernel, not as a .ko.
420-rt-smp runs hellaciously fast on my dual-Xeon. Stable, too.
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Kenny-M
Sit Heel Speak,
Maggotspawn's?? I'm not sure I want to ask.
On the Dell 610 you can set the SCSI drives to appear in the BIOS.
I may be wrong but can't the first two drives be handled by the BIOS? Or, does Puppy bypass the BIOS.
Hoping the storms clear up tomorrow so I can burn a CD and fire it up.
Will packages written for Puppy 4.2.1 run? Stupid question. If it dosen't boot then Puppy won't install on it?!? I guess recompiling the Kernel would be an issue. I have to get the exact Adaptec chipset. I was hoping to setup Grub and dual boot Windows XP on the first drive which is where XP is and put Puppy on the second drive.
Showing my aging Sysadmin skills... It's amazing how much you forget when you don't use it for a few years... I used to be a real good nuts and bolts person. Now I think I forget the bolts part. Ha...
Maggotspawn's?? I'm not sure I want to ask.
On the Dell 610 you can set the SCSI drives to appear in the BIOS.
I may be wrong but can't the first two drives be handled by the BIOS? Or, does Puppy bypass the BIOS.
Hoping the storms clear up tomorrow so I can burn a CD and fire it up.
Will packages written for Puppy 4.2.1 run? Stupid question. If it dosen't boot then Puppy won't install on it?!? I guess recompiling the Kernel would be an issue. I have to get the exact Adaptec chipset. I was hoping to setup Grub and dual boot Windows XP on the first drive which is where XP is and put Puppy on the second drive.
Showing my aging Sysadmin skills... It's amazing how much you forget when you don't use it for a few years... I used to be a real good nuts and bolts person. Now I think I forget the bolts part. Ha...
-
Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
I feel that an in-depth explanation is called for.
BTW, I actually know what an HP 9000 was; I go back to an HP 5000 minicomputer circa 1975. Ya shoulda seen what I was doing with Clipper 5 in 1994. I hope to someday equal that in Puppy.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=43740
You can run our bootloader, grub, from any disk --my own, in fact, is on the first SCSI disk-- because grub, itself, has a built-in Adaptec driver. Grub then reads into ram, and passes a pointer and the control baton to, the Linux kernel of your choice. The pointer tells the kernel where the rest of the distro is.
In our "full" install, the pointer is to a partition where the kernel will find the standard Linux directories tree, including most importantly the standard Linux initialization sequence of bash scripts. In the case where the pointed-to partition is on an SCSI disk but the kernel has no SCSI controller driver, the kernel will halt with an error message. Sorry, it's been so long since I made the blunder of creating a full install onto an SCSI disk of a Puppy distro whose kernel does not have an Adaptec driver compiled-in...that I can't recall what the error message is.
In our "frugal" a.k.a. "coexist" install, the pointer is to the file initrd.gz, a compressed and very abbreviated standard Linux directories tree which our kernel (vmlinuz), as in all Linuxes, then reads off the disk and into memory. The kernel then mounts this in-memory directories tree and proceeds to execute /sbin/init, the standard first Linux init script. The basic setup and housekeeping of /sbin/init culminates in a "switch-root" which re-points the kernel to the much larger directories-tree which constitutes the runtime Puppy distro. The rest of the standard Linux initialization-scripts sequence beginning with /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit and ending with bringing the desktop up, ready to use, then runs from this switched-into directories-tree, which contains within itself the particular assortment of application software that was chosen for and characterizes each Puppy (or Puppy-derivative) name and version number.
Where Puppy differs crucially from all other Linux distros is that, within /sbin/init, resides the rather elaborate necessary setup code to accommodate several types of case wherein the switched-into directories tree is itself also expanded into memory from a compressed archive (the pup_4nn.sfs file), much like the initrd.gz one, thus endowing Puppy the unique ability, given enough ram in the machine, to run entirely from memory--with all the advantages of speed and security that implies.
Note the crucial point in the very first sentence of the 2nd expounding paragraph above, that although it is the bootloader that reads the kernel into memory...it is the kernel, not the bootloader, which reads initrd.gz off the disk and expands it into memory. Our grub bootloader has Adaptec drivers but the kernel, depending on Puppy or Puppy-derivative distro version...i.e. design goals of the composer at the time...may or may not.
If the kernel did not have Adaptec drivers compiled-in but it is pointed by grub's configuration file (/boot/grub/menu.lst) to an instance of initrd.gz which resides on an SCSI disk, then too bad, the kernel can't find its initrd and dies issuing complaint of same.
However, if the kernel does have Adaptec drivers compiled-in then it is able to read initrd.gz off of any disk (well...I am for the sake of simplicity just considering ATA and SCSI disks here) (not USB SATA and others). And the compressed Puppy filesystem (pup_4nn.sfs) can likewise reside on that same SCSI disk. The task of accommodating all permutations of ramsize, disksize, and resident media to a runs-in-ram design goal has been plenty challenging enough that, to date, Puppy does not yet offer an ability to place the pup_4nn.sfs on a different partition than the kernel and initrd.gz.
In the case where the kernel does not have Adaptec drivers compiled-in but it doesn't matter because the pointer is to an instance of initrd.gz which resides on an ATA disk anyway...then the kernel can still be endowed with power to access SCSI disks by placing the correct Adaptec drivers, formatted as loadable kernel modules (.ko extension files) (these are manufactured at kernel-compile time), in specific subdirs of /lib within the initrd.gz directories-tree, and by weaving into /sbin/init the necessary device probe code to sense the possession of an Adaptec and thus load the provided driver .ko's. Identical copies of all needed .ko's, covering all peripherals whose driver was not compiled into the kernel itself, must reside within the /lib subdir of the subsequently-switched-into Puppy directories-tree if the device is to continue to be used after the switch-root is performed. When the kernel acquires driver modules from the initrd filesystem, we have the case where the running Puppy can see the SCSI drives, even though it could not boot from one.
HTH,
SHS
BTW, I actually know what an HP 9000 was; I go back to an HP 5000 minicomputer circa 1975. Ya shoulda seen what I was doing with Clipper 5 in 1994. I hope to someday equal that in Puppy.
Well, I'm not really a Weimaraner either. The thread isKenny-M wrote:Maggotspawn's?? I'm not sure I want to ask.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=43740
Do you mean "you can set the SCSI drives to appear in the BIOS's boot device search order list"? That does not mean that the drives are somehow accessible in a way that bypasses their controller (and thus the need for a driver). It just tells the BIOS to search these devices in this order until a good bootloader turns up (or die trying).Kenny-M wrote:On the Dell 610 you can set the SCSI drives to appear in the BIOS.
You can run our bootloader, grub, from any disk --my own, in fact, is on the first SCSI disk-- because grub, itself, has a built-in Adaptec driver. Grub then reads into ram, and passes a pointer and the control baton to, the Linux kernel of your choice. The pointer tells the kernel where the rest of the distro is.
In our "full" install, the pointer is to a partition where the kernel will find the standard Linux directories tree, including most importantly the standard Linux initialization sequence of bash scripts. In the case where the pointed-to partition is on an SCSI disk but the kernel has no SCSI controller driver, the kernel will halt with an error message. Sorry, it's been so long since I made the blunder of creating a full install onto an SCSI disk of a Puppy distro whose kernel does not have an Adaptec driver compiled-in...that I can't recall what the error message is.
In our "frugal" a.k.a. "coexist" install, the pointer is to the file initrd.gz, a compressed and very abbreviated standard Linux directories tree which our kernel (vmlinuz), as in all Linuxes, then reads off the disk and into memory. The kernel then mounts this in-memory directories tree and proceeds to execute /sbin/init, the standard first Linux init script. The basic setup and housekeeping of /sbin/init culminates in a "switch-root" which re-points the kernel to the much larger directories-tree which constitutes the runtime Puppy distro. The rest of the standard Linux initialization-scripts sequence beginning with /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit and ending with bringing the desktop up, ready to use, then runs from this switched-into directories-tree, which contains within itself the particular assortment of application software that was chosen for and characterizes each Puppy (or Puppy-derivative) name and version number.
Where Puppy differs crucially from all other Linux distros is that, within /sbin/init, resides the rather elaborate necessary setup code to accommodate several types of case wherein the switched-into directories tree is itself also expanded into memory from a compressed archive (the pup_4nn.sfs file), much like the initrd.gz one, thus endowing Puppy the unique ability, given enough ram in the machine, to run entirely from memory--with all the advantages of speed and security that implies.
Note the crucial point in the very first sentence of the 2nd expounding paragraph above, that although it is the bootloader that reads the kernel into memory...it is the kernel, not the bootloader, which reads initrd.gz off the disk and expands it into memory. Our grub bootloader has Adaptec drivers but the kernel, depending on Puppy or Puppy-derivative distro version...i.e. design goals of the composer at the time...may or may not.
If the kernel did not have Adaptec drivers compiled-in but it is pointed by grub's configuration file (/boot/grub/menu.lst) to an instance of initrd.gz which resides on an SCSI disk, then too bad, the kernel can't find its initrd and dies issuing complaint of same.
However, if the kernel does have Adaptec drivers compiled-in then it is able to read initrd.gz off of any disk (well...I am for the sake of simplicity just considering ATA and SCSI disks here) (not USB SATA and others). And the compressed Puppy filesystem (pup_4nn.sfs) can likewise reside on that same SCSI disk. The task of accommodating all permutations of ramsize, disksize, and resident media to a runs-in-ram design goal has been plenty challenging enough that, to date, Puppy does not yet offer an ability to place the pup_4nn.sfs on a different partition than the kernel and initrd.gz.
In the case where the kernel does not have Adaptec drivers compiled-in but it doesn't matter because the pointer is to an instance of initrd.gz which resides on an ATA disk anyway...then the kernel can still be endowed with power to access SCSI disks by placing the correct Adaptec drivers, formatted as loadable kernel modules (.ko extension files) (these are manufactured at kernel-compile time), in specific subdirs of /lib within the initrd.gz directories-tree, and by weaving into /sbin/init the necessary device probe code to sense the possession of an Adaptec and thus load the provided driver .ko's. Identical copies of all needed .ko's, covering all peripherals whose driver was not compiled into the kernel itself, must reside within the /lib subdir of the subsequently-switched-into Puppy directories-tree if the device is to continue to be used after the switch-root is performed. When the kernel acquires driver modules from the initrd filesystem, we have the case where the running Puppy can see the SCSI drives, even though it could not boot from one.
HTH,
SHS
Last edited by Sit Heel Speak on Thu 13 Aug 2009, 04:44, edited 3 times in total.
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Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
So...to tie it all together:
4.21-retro and 4.21-regular do not have Adaptec drivers compiled into the kernel, and do not carry Adaptec drivers in the form of loadable kernel modules (extension .ko) in the initrd.gz (nor in the pup_421.sfs). They can neither boot from nor access SCSI drives.
upup-476-SCSI.iso has all the Adaptec drivers compiled into the kernel ***edited: yours truly made a too-wild inference from incomplete information...upup-476 DOES NOT have SCSI drivers compiled into the kernel, see BarryK's message below***) and can both boot from (***NOPE***) and see (***YES***) all your SCSI drives. I haven't tried it myself yet, but reports (***the stinkin' liars***) are good.
M.s's 420-rt-smp carries loadable kernel-module (.ko) Adaptec drivers, so cannot boot from SCSI but can use SCSI drives after it is up and running, and it runs like a bat outta hell. Stable too. So far I have not found a 4.21 package that won't run on it. It actually has a newer kernel than 4.21, so is in no way obsolete relative to 4.21.
If all you have is SCSI drives, then your safest bet would be to run 420-rt-smp from a live-CD, but make your pup_save.2fs savefile (Puppy asks you to create it, at first shutdown) on the drive you do not have Windows on. Puppy will also ask you if you want to copy pup_420.sfs to the hard drive and you should do this so it will boot faster next time. Puppy's handling of ntfs partitions, like all Linuxes, is a risky thing and so if you can at all avoid writing to the disk Windows is on, don't.
I hope this clarifies things. If not, feel free to ask.
Cheers,
SHS
4.21-retro and 4.21-regular do not have Adaptec drivers compiled into the kernel, and do not carry Adaptec drivers in the form of loadable kernel modules (extension .ko) in the initrd.gz (nor in the pup_421.sfs). They can neither boot from nor access SCSI drives.
upup-476-SCSI.iso has all the Adaptec drivers compiled into the kernel ***edited: yours truly made a too-wild inference from incomplete information...upup-476 DOES NOT have SCSI drivers compiled into the kernel, see BarryK's message below***) and can both boot from (***NOPE***) and see (***YES***) all your SCSI drives. I haven't tried it myself yet, but reports (***the stinkin' liars***) are good.
M.s's 420-rt-smp carries loadable kernel-module (.ko) Adaptec drivers, so cannot boot from SCSI but can use SCSI drives after it is up and running, and it runs like a bat outta hell. Stable too. So far I have not found a 4.21 package that won't run on it. It actually has a newer kernel than 4.21, so is in no way obsolete relative to 4.21.
If all you have is SCSI drives, then your safest bet would be to run 420-rt-smp from a live-CD, but make your pup_save.2fs savefile (Puppy asks you to create it, at first shutdown) on the drive you do not have Windows on. Puppy will also ask you if you want to copy pup_420.sfs to the hard drive and you should do this so it will boot faster next time. Puppy's handling of ntfs partitions, like all Linuxes, is a risky thing and so if you can at all avoid writing to the disk Windows is on, don't.
I hope this clarifies things. If not, feel free to ask.
Cheers,
SHS
Last edited by Sit Heel Speak on Fri 14 Aug 2009, 18:53, edited 1 time in total.
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Kenny-M
SHS,
Thanks for the informative reply.
I have downloaded UPUP-476-SCSI.iso and will burn a CD
today and once I clear off the second SCSI drive of its contents
I will attempt a live CD run and if all goes well an install.
Just had a thought. Been here before but forgot. Installing
Grub on the first drive should be OK but what do I format
the second drive as to use Frugal FAT32 or ext2 and if I
want to partition a swap partition.
I think I answered my own question. My current USB HD
of Puppy on the Dell 745 is set to:
Partition 1 ext2, boot Puppy's Home
Partition 2 swap
Partition 3 FAT32 (cross OS file sharing)
So I should be able to configure the SCSI drive the same
way? If this seems wrong please let me know.
Clipper??? I remember that database. An old co-worker used
it to create all kinds of things when I worked at Northern Telecom.
Mid 1970's HP-5000. Mid 1970's I worked at Bell and at that
time they were using DEC PDP-11/70's running Unix. The area
I was in had four of them. I can recall all the buzz when we
added the Bourne shell because Steve actually came down
to install and verify it. Cool stuff, nice guy.
Thanks for the informative reply.
I have downloaded UPUP-476-SCSI.iso and will burn a CD
today and once I clear off the second SCSI drive of its contents
I will attempt a live CD run and if all goes well an install.
Just had a thought. Been here before but forgot. Installing
Grub on the first drive should be OK but what do I format
the second drive as to use Frugal FAT32 or ext2 and if I
want to partition a swap partition.
I think I answered my own question. My current USB HD
of Puppy on the Dell 745 is set to:
Partition 1 ext2, boot Puppy's Home
Partition 2 swap
Partition 3 FAT32 (cross OS file sharing)
So I should be able to configure the SCSI drive the same
way? If this seems wrong please let me know.
Clipper??? I remember that database. An old co-worker used
it to create all kinds of things when I worked at Northern Telecom.
Mid 1970's HP-5000. Mid 1970's I worked at Bell and at that
time they were using DEC PDP-11/70's running Unix. The area
I was in had four of them. I can recall all the buzz when we
added the Bourne shell because Steve actually came down
to install and verify it. Cool stuff, nice guy.
-
Kenny-M
SHS,
The ISO file contents are dated May 22, 2009.
Here's the progress. Allowing CD to boot all appears OK until GUI starts at which time I see vertical white bars on a black screen. Lost control of machine at this point. Had to push reset.
I suspect I need a boot option to force resolution to 1024x768 and/or colors?? See message end for hardware.
If I boot Puppy with puppy pfx=ram,nox acpi=off it starts coming up then complains about "UPUP-476.sfs not found. Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console. Also is displays /bin/sh can't access tty; job control turned off.
At this point if I do a mkdir sda1 , then mount /dev/sda1 sda1 I can see the contents of the first SCSI drive.
Then I did a mkdir sdb1 , then mount /dev/sdb1. I can now see the contents of the second SCSI drive.
It appears to recognize my SCSI DLT IV tape drive.
I can't however find the CD drive. Don't know what it's device name should be. It is an IDE CD-RW drive.
Last "dmesg" rolls by so fast is there a way to pause it or slow it down? No more command yet.
System main hardware:
NIC 3Com 3C918 , 3C905b-TX compatible
Audio Crystal 4237b
Video Card Matrox Millennium G550
RAM 1 GB
SCSI chips AIC-7890 and AIC-7880
IDE CR-RW
Any ideas? Thanks.
The ISO file contents are dated May 22, 2009.
Here's the progress. Allowing CD to boot all appears OK until GUI starts at which time I see vertical white bars on a black screen. Lost control of machine at this point. Had to push reset.
I suspect I need a boot option to force resolution to 1024x768 and/or colors?? See message end for hardware.
If I boot Puppy with puppy pfx=ram,nox acpi=off it starts coming up then complains about "UPUP-476.sfs not found. Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console. Also is displays /bin/sh can't access tty; job control turned off.
At this point if I do a mkdir sda1 , then mount /dev/sda1 sda1 I can see the contents of the first SCSI drive.
Then I did a mkdir sdb1 , then mount /dev/sdb1. I can now see the contents of the second SCSI drive.
It appears to recognize my SCSI DLT IV tape drive.
I can't however find the CD drive. Don't know what it's device name should be. It is an IDE CD-RW drive.
Last "dmesg" rolls by so fast is there a way to pause it or slow it down? No more command yet.
System main hardware:
NIC 3Com 3C918 , 3C905b-TX compatible
Audio Crystal 4237b
Video Card Matrox Millennium G550
RAM 1 GB
SCSI chips AIC-7890 and AIC-7880
IDE CR-RW
Any ideas? Thanks.
-
Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
Research Central of the Human Race.Kenny-M wrote:Mid 1970's I worked at Bell
I can only top that story in an unebullient way. I forget offhand if it was an 8 or 11, but was doing mech eng 101 coursework at U of W on the identical PDP which two kids, Bill and Paul, were sneaking in at nights and learning assembly and writing their first BASIC interpreter on. But I never met them. I did meet a guy named Tim. He tried to recruit everyone in the study hall, every gol-dang day, to collaborate in the writing of his OS. Promising fair shares in the eventual millions it was sure to be worth. Loudly. As grating as garlic. All without exception considered him an annoyance and studiously ignored him. The longer we gave the shoulder the more whiney he got, until he gave up and left. No wonder he never found a customer til forced by penury to accept Bill's paltry lumpsum. Had Tim been less pushy or I less bent on a career as a bridge engineer, I would today be a philanthropist. Or dead.Kenny-M wrote:...were using DEC PDP-11/70's...Steve actually came down...
Yes, exactly right. My own preference is for ext3 journaling. As to size of the ext2/3, for a basic install 1 GB is all most people ever need. On my Sabayon (Gentoo with bells) partition which I log into when feeling masochistic, when I first set it up I allocated 20 GB and have never felt that too little. Contrary to universal advice of the sages here I do not limit myself to 256 or 512 of swap, I use a full gig. Have seen it nearly used up while doing cartoon editing, imagine George Lucas uses 2.Kenny-M wrote:what do I format
the second drive as to use Frugal FAT32 or ext2 and if I
want to partition a swap partition...
Partition 1 ext2, boot Puppy's Home
Partition 2 swap
Partition 3 FAT32 (cross OS file sharing)
So I should be able to configure the SCSI drive the same
way?
I created exactly three: a hotel reservation system and a library (as in books) management system for the U.S. Army, and a stock picking aid for self and a few clients which worked ferociously well for two years until booksfudging at the boardroom level became universal practice and Goldman developed their frontrunning software so mine ceased working, circa 1996. It was pretty nifty, I put about 2000 hours into it. Had Felicia Taylor and Maria Bartiromo in the lower right corner, live, optionally, as eye candy, NASDAQ level 2 and CBOT last-tick option quotes, could show every analysis chart known to man with a press of any of its three dozen or so hotkeys, and for a few of my preferred charts it even had rudimentary voice control. Oh yes and this was in Germany, using a Deutsche Telekom dual-ISDN feed. I was quite proud and drove an Audi A4. (current level of know-how is: now let me see...how the deuce does the right-quote work in sed...)Kenny-M wrote:Clipper??? I remember that database. An old co-worker used it to create all kinds of things
OK, back to earth now...Dunno, no exp on that machine, no exp with Matrox. Could be that vga=normal after acpi=off will cure it, maybe add irqpoll, Or maybe swap in a Voodoo 3 or Ati Rage Pro 128 or STB Lightspeed 128. Or maybe you got a bad download, but you did check md5sum of course. burniso2cd is more reliable than recent PBurns. I can only thrash until I try upup. I will, over the weekend. /var/log/Xorg.0.log sometimes provides useful clues.Kenny-M wrote:until GUI starts...vertical white bars on black screen...
Lost control...force resolution to 1024x768 and/or colors??
There is one forum-member-contributed puplet floating around, I forget which, where the provider gave the .sfs on the CD a name other than the mypup_4nn.sfs that it should have. Booting with another Puppy then swapping the live CD for his honest-mistake and using PMount to mount it, then copying its vmlinuz initrd.gz pup_4nn.sfs atahd (marker file, not necessary in all Puppies) onto disk and renaming the on-disk copy of the .sfs to the name the init script says it can't find, and then creating the appropriate section in my grub conf to boot it as a frugal install, permitted me to boot and examine his distro.
The overall Linux evolution at this moment is in clash because Linus or one of his lieutenants decided somewhere around 2.6.28.n that a new squashfile (.sfs) format was just what the world needs. Puppies up til...mmm...about a month ago I guess...used squashfs 3.3 to write and 3.4 to read (3.4 can also read 3.3). The new squashfs 4.0 format is, need I say, not backward compatible with the 3's. Don't know offhand whether upup is using squashfs 3.n or was a very bleeding-edge implementation of 4.0. You can start another Puppy and mount the Upup CD and click on the .sfs to mount it. If mere click-on-its-icon fails...use Puppy 4.22 with
Code: Select all
mkdir /mnt/the_sfs
mount-FULL -o loop -t squashfs /dev/sr0/pup_476.sfs /mnt/the_sfs
rox /mnt/the_sfsumount /mnt/the_sfs
rmdir /mnt/the_sfs
)
and if the mount errors-out look at dmesg|tail. If dmesg complains of incompatible squash format, drop back to Puppy 4.21 (3.4 format squash) or 4.12 or w-h-y and try examining upup's .sfs again.
Back to my rickshaw stand...
SHS
-
Kenny-M
SHS,
Geez it sounds like you and I have backgrounds that kind of weave
through each others experiences. I however never got a College
degree I went straight from High School to full time job following Monday.
Back to Earth. I dunno. It's kind of fun up here where the air is rare.
Rickshaw stand? Using your Puppy to guard over it? Cute pooch.
What part of the world do you live in?
Never had an Audi just a Chevy Malibu Sport edition. It was OK.
Do you know who is working on upup-476-scsi? Perhaps I could post
a note or something directly asking about video drivers or lack of.
"I put about 2000 hours into it"? That's like a year 40hrs. a wek.
"dmesg|tail". Slapping forehead. For some reason I was stuck on more.
Through the years lemme' see tail, pg, more, browse...
While at Northern Telecom I wrote some apps. and tools so site engineers could access remote telephone switches, log them in, view system log, automatically set time/date, decode many switch error messages. This was done on four multi-tower boxes (DV-1's) running Motorola 68010 processors and Unix on wopping 80MB hard drives. To transfer data between machines it used X.25 connections. The engineers were attached via dedicated hard wired (2 pair NOT Ethernet) workstations. See link below for some snaps:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9479603@N0 ... 824219250/
Sometimes I opine for the old days but you can't go back:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9479603@N0 ... 826941455/
I'm talking too much. You never know who is lurking...
Anyway.... Some more info. Could not download 420-rt-smp. It gets
about half way downloading then dies. Tried it three times. Said fooey.
I have a few old Dell 610's here. The video truth (P.C. number):
(1&3) Matrox G550. Locks up when entering GUI.
(2) Cirrus Logic 5430/5400. GUI goes to start and gives error. Back to sh.
(4) Dell 745 SFF with ATI Radeon X1300Pro. Starts UPUP-476 OK.
1,2 and 3 have SCSI and 4 has SATA.
I will try your suggestion acpi=off vga=normal AND mounting the
476-sfs off the CD. First attempt errored out. Will try the way you
suggested.
How does one look at a Puppy distribution to tell what video cards
it knows about or supports?
I really appreciate your help and war stories!
Geez it sounds like you and I have backgrounds that kind of weave
through each others experiences. I however never got a College
degree I went straight from High School to full time job following Monday.
Back to Earth. I dunno. It's kind of fun up here where the air is rare.
Rickshaw stand? Using your Puppy to guard over it? Cute pooch.
What part of the world do you live in?
Never had an Audi just a Chevy Malibu Sport edition. It was OK.
Do you know who is working on upup-476-scsi? Perhaps I could post
a note or something directly asking about video drivers or lack of.
"I put about 2000 hours into it"? That's like a year 40hrs. a wek.
"dmesg|tail". Slapping forehead. For some reason I was stuck on more.
Through the years lemme' see tail, pg, more, browse...
While at Northern Telecom I wrote some apps. and tools so site engineers could access remote telephone switches, log them in, view system log, automatically set time/date, decode many switch error messages. This was done on four multi-tower boxes (DV-1's) running Motorola 68010 processors and Unix on wopping 80MB hard drives. To transfer data between machines it used X.25 connections. The engineers were attached via dedicated hard wired (2 pair NOT Ethernet) workstations. See link below for some snaps:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9479603@N0 ... 824219250/
Sometimes I opine for the old days but you can't go back:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9479603@N0 ... 826941455/
I'm talking too much. You never know who is lurking...
Anyway.... Some more info. Could not download 420-rt-smp. It gets
about half way downloading then dies. Tried it three times. Said fooey.
I have a few old Dell 610's here. The video truth (P.C. number):
(1&3) Matrox G550. Locks up when entering GUI.
(2) Cirrus Logic 5430/5400. GUI goes to start and gives error. Back to sh.
(4) Dell 745 SFF with ATI Radeon X1300Pro. Starts UPUP-476 OK.
1,2 and 3 have SCSI and 4 has SATA.
I will try your suggestion acpi=off vga=normal AND mounting the
476-sfs off the CD. First attempt errored out. Will try the way you
suggested.
How does one look at a Puppy distribution to tell what video cards
it knows about or supports?
I really appreciate your help and war stories!
-
BarryK
- Puppy Master
- Posts: 9392
- Joined: Mon 09 May 2005, 09:23
- Location: Perth, Western Australia
- Contact:
I have speed-read this thread, and some extra comments...
The kernels that I have compiled for the Woof builds do not have the SCSI drivers compiled in.
What I do instead is in the init script replay the pci modalias files, generating kernel uevents, which loads the appropriate SCSI module.
What I have to do is a special build with the SCSI modules in the initrd, and I name the iso file appropriately, something like 'puppy-xxxx-SCSI.iso'.
When I release Puppy 4.3 it will also have one of these special builds. The live-CD should be able to boot from a SCSI cd drive and it should be installable to a SCSI drive.
I am just about to upload 4.3beta1, if there is interest I can also do a SCSI-build and upload that for testing.
CORRECTION:
Um, no, I'm confusing myself. Actually, the way the init script detects and load the appropriate SCSI module is by reading all the 'modalias' file and running modprobe -- you would need to look at the init script yourself to see how it's done.
Replaying of kernel uevents is something different, and is done later in the init script, also in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.
Here is relevant code from the init script:
The kernels that I have compiled for the Woof builds do not have the SCSI drivers compiled in.
What I do instead is in the init script replay the pci modalias files, generating kernel uevents, which loads the appropriate SCSI module.
What I have to do is a special build with the SCSI modules in the initrd, and I name the iso file appropriately, something like 'puppy-xxxx-SCSI.iso'.
When I release Puppy 4.3 it will also have one of these special builds. The live-CD should be able to boot from a SCSI cd drive and it should be installable to a SCSI drive.
I am just about to upload 4.3beta1, if there is interest I can also do a SCSI-build and upload that for testing.
CORRECTION:
Um, no, I'm confusing myself. Actually, the way the init script detects and load the appropriate SCSI module is by reading all the 'modalias' file and running modprobe -- you would need to look at the init script yourself to see how it's done.
Replaying of kernel uevents is something different, and is done later in the init script, also in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.
Here is relevant code from the init script:
Code: Select all
#w003 maybe this will fix... look for 'bc0Csc03i10' in modalias...
MODALIASES="`cat /sys/bus/pci/devices/*/modalias`" #important, save to variable before loop.
if [ "`echo "$MODALIASES" | grep 'bc0Csc03i10'`" != "" ];then
modprobe yenta-socket
[ $? -eq 0 ] && sleep 2
fi
#v423 k2.6.29.6 dmesg has warning that ehci-hcd should load before uhci-hcd and ohci-hid
# this is contrary to my understanding all these years, but oh well, let's do it...
ELSPCI="`elspci -l`" #jesses great little utility.
[ "`echo "$ELSPCI" | grep '0C0320'`" != "" ] && modprobe ehci-hcd
for ONEMODALIAS in $MODALIASES
do
modprobe -v $ONEMODALIAS #-v means verbose.
[ $? -eq 0 ] && echo -n "." > /dev/console
done
Last edited by BarryK on Fri 14 Aug 2009, 14:00, edited 1 time in total.
[url]https://bkhome.org/news/[/url]
-
MinHundHettePerro
- Posts: 852
- Joined: Thu 05 Feb 2009, 22:22
- Location: SE
Yes, pleaseBarryK wrote:I am just about to upload 4.3beta1, if there is interest I can also do a SCSI-build and upload that for testing.
!cheers/
MHHP
[color=green]Celeron 2.8 GHz, 1 GB, i82845, many ptns, modes 12, 13
Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz, 1 GB, nvidia quadro nvs 285[/color]
Slackos & 214X, ... and Q6xx
[color=darkred]Nämen, vaf....[/color] [color=green]ln -s /dev/null MHHP[/color]
Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz, 1 GB, nvidia quadro nvs 285[/color]
Slackos & 214X, ... and Q6xx
[color=darkred]Nämen, vaf....[/color] [color=green]ln -s /dev/null MHHP[/color]
-
Kenny-M
Barry,
Yes I am very interested! I have several old Dell Optiplex 610
machines that are SCSI based (AIC-7880 & AIC-7890) just asking
to have Puppy put on them.
There is a main another problem as I said these are older machines
that run Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows NT fine.
When loading Puppy UPUP_476_SCSI or other current Linux
like Slax 6.11 the machines get as far as trying to start
the GUI and results in a Black screen with White vertical bars.
From what I have been able to see the video drivers for the
Matrox Millennium G550 no longer exist so it appears it attempts
to load a default driver which may work but sets the refresh at
85HZ which my LCD does not support. It does support 60HZ
with 1024x768. I did discover on the Matrox web site there exists
downloadable source for a number of cards including the G550.
See attachment.. Trying to upload 'gz' file failed. Said file was empty.
Allowed Extensions and Sizes says maximum file size is 0??
The other specs on those machines are Audio is a Crystal 4237b
and the NIC is a 3Com 3C918 , 3C905b-TX compatible.
If I boot Puppy 476 SCSI with puppy pfx=ram,nox acpi=off it starts
coming up then complains about "UPUP-476.sfs not found. Dropping
out to initial-ramdisk console. Also is displays /bin/sh can't access tty;
job control turned off. At this point because the system hasn't
loaded and fell through there isn't much I can try. Or, is there? At
this point I am able to mount the SCSI drives as /dev/sda1 SCSI-1
and /dev/sdb1 as SCSI-2. This is a real good thing... I can also mount
the IDE CD-RW as /dev/hda1.
So I think for now the big deal is the video problem or a work
around.
Thanks Barry.
Yes I am very interested! I have several old Dell Optiplex 610
machines that are SCSI based (AIC-7880 & AIC-7890) just asking
to have Puppy put on them.
There is a main another problem as I said these are older machines
that run Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows NT fine.
When loading Puppy UPUP_476_SCSI or other current Linux
like Slax 6.11 the machines get as far as trying to start
the GUI and results in a Black screen with White vertical bars.
From what I have been able to see the video drivers for the
Matrox Millennium G550 no longer exist so it appears it attempts
to load a default driver which may work but sets the refresh at
85HZ which my LCD does not support. It does support 60HZ
with 1024x768. I did discover on the Matrox web site there exists
downloadable source for a number of cards including the G550.
See attachment.. Trying to upload 'gz' file failed. Said file was empty.
Allowed Extensions and Sizes says maximum file size is 0??
The other specs on those machines are Audio is a Crystal 4237b
and the NIC is a 3Com 3C918 , 3C905b-TX compatible.
If I boot Puppy 476 SCSI with puppy pfx=ram,nox acpi=off it starts
coming up then complains about "UPUP-476.sfs not found. Dropping
out to initial-ramdisk console. Also is displays /bin/sh can't access tty;
job control turned off. At this point because the system hasn't
loaded and fell through there isn't much I can try. Or, is there? At
this point I am able to mount the SCSI drives as /dev/sda1 SCSI-1
and /dev/sdb1 as SCSI-2. This is a real good thing... I can also mount
the IDE CD-RW as /dev/hda1.
So I think for now the big deal is the video problem or a work
around.
Thanks Barry.
-
Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
-
Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
I'm not clear on whether you are attempting to boot the live-CD or managed to mount it from another Puppy or other Linux distro and thereby create a full or frugal disk install, but in any case, here is a guy who was booting a Matrox with modifications to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and the kernel boot line, perhaps his solutions may be useful. The commandline editor is mp, e.g.Kenny-M wrote:...sets the refresh at 85HZ which my LCD does not support. It does support 60HZ with 1024x768...
mp /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux ... layscreen/
A Google search on
grub kernel boot options video vesafb vga 60hz
may find the proper combination to stick on the end of the puppy pfix line to use with your Matrox, framebuffer and all.
Here is a thread from the Gentoo discussion forum which may provide useful clues:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=49036
splash=silent at the end might also help, if the new (in 4.21) Puppy splash screen is giving the Matrox indigestion.
-
Sit Heel Speak
- Posts: 2595
- Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
- Location: downwind
Thank you for posting this, I was beginning to doubt my sanity.BarryK wrote:CORRECTION:
Last edited by Sit Heel Speak on Fri 14 Aug 2009, 22:42, edited 1 time in total.
-
Kenny-M
SHS,
You wrote "I'm not clear". I was trying to run the live CD.
The initial "splash" that talks about the F2 key and shows the Puppy
looks fine. It's after all the usual messages when the GUI fires up
that it goes Black with White vertical bars.
If I use the 'nox' boot time option that is where it drops out then
complains about "UPUP-476.sfs not found. Dropping out to
initial-ramdisk console. Also is displays /bin/sh can't access tty;
job control turned off. Almost like it's the wrong "case".
What I did as a test I downloaded Debian 502 Netinstaller, burned
a CD and booted off that and installed kernel 2.6.26-2-686. It
came up saw the SCSI devices and correctly setup the video card.
I chose 'KDE'. Used SCSI 2 for Debian & Swap and SCSI 1 for XP
and Crub. It automatically installed Open Office 2.4 and some
developement tools. Was able to boot between XP and Debian.
That being said. I made a bo-bo and accidently deleted all the
installed packages using Altitude or whatever it's called. Not a
good thing! No more KDE. Poof! In any event I know the video
card can be seen and setup by Linux. So now I have to decide
on my next step. Wait for Puppy 499 SCSI or??
P.S. I was trying to upload the Matrox linux driver GZ file but
for some reason the Forum would not allow it. Said file was empty.
Allowed Extensions and Sizes showed maximum file size is 0??
This is cool, the plot thickens as the players gather around. Sorry
I fell off my soapbox. All this CD burning & swapping, rebooting,
etc. is making me a little cross eyed.
Oh, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is out of prison. She is now 60.
Remember her?
Thanks.
You wrote "I'm not clear". I was trying to run the live CD.
The initial "splash" that talks about the F2 key and shows the Puppy
looks fine. It's after all the usual messages when the GUI fires up
that it goes Black with White vertical bars.
If I use the 'nox' boot time option that is where it drops out then
complains about "UPUP-476.sfs not found. Dropping out to
initial-ramdisk console. Also is displays /bin/sh can't access tty;
job control turned off. Almost like it's the wrong "case".
What I did as a test I downloaded Debian 502 Netinstaller, burned
a CD and booted off that and installed kernel 2.6.26-2-686. It
came up saw the SCSI devices and correctly setup the video card.
I chose 'KDE'. Used SCSI 2 for Debian & Swap and SCSI 1 for XP
and Crub. It automatically installed Open Office 2.4 and some
developement tools. Was able to boot between XP and Debian.
That being said. I made a bo-bo and accidently deleted all the
installed packages using Altitude or whatever it's called. Not a
good thing! No more KDE. Poof! In any event I know the video
card can be seen and setup by Linux. So now I have to decide
on my next step. Wait for Puppy 499 SCSI or??
P.S. I was trying to upload the Matrox linux driver GZ file but
for some reason the Forum would not allow it. Said file was empty.
Allowed Extensions and Sizes showed maximum file size is 0??
This is cool, the plot thickens as the players gather around. Sorry
I fell off my soapbox. All this CD burning & swapping, rebooting,
etc. is making me a little cross eyed.
Oh, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is out of prison. She is now 60.
Remember her?
Thanks.
-
BarryK
- Puppy Master
- Posts: 9392
- Joined: Mon 09 May 2005, 09:23
- Location: Perth, Western Australia
- Contact:
I have created a SCSI-enable puppy 4.3beta1, using kernel 2.6.25.16. I know that some rare old hardware has trouble with that kernel, in which case I could also do a SCSI-enabled build with some other kernel, say 2.6.29.6.
Anyway, look here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... -4.3beta1/
Anyway, look here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... -4.3beta1/
[url]https://bkhome.org/news/[/url]
-
Kenny-M
Barry,
Downloaded image and burned OK. System now starts as expected.
Results of several runs:
Video is correct in /etc/X11/xorg.conf Matrox G550 1024x768 16 Deep
and displays properly with the GUI.
CD Plextor CD-R PX-240A comes up as SCSI is actually 'IDE' CD-RW?
SCSI devices recognized on both controllers. SCSI Disk & DLT tape.
Audio not working. Does not recognize Crystal 4237b. Was popular chip?
Part of motherboard not a plug in card.
NIC gets assigned as 3C59x seems to work but is really 3C918/3C905b?
Seamonkey runs videos on either CNN or YouTube choppy and slow!
Gpated appears to work OK. Setup at different times ext4 or ext2 parts.
Swap partition created OK.
Universal Installer says SCSI not implemented so I tried IDE/SATA
Chose sdb
Frugal
Folder puppy423
* no matter how sdb is setup ext2 or ext4 always says it's ext4?
Says complete but there is nothing on sdb?
Grub fails on sdb with ext4. With ext2 seems to apply files however
when it gets to installing MBR on prime drive /sda it goes to sleep.
Drivers from Forum for mount.cifs download OK and installs Pet OK.
I can mount cif shares on my NAS server. Maybe include in pkg.
Mount.cifs worked and downloaded OK under Puppy 4.2.1.
I notice installing Pet no longer part in Installer program. Took a
couple of minutes to figure that one out. I know your just testing me.
Console rxvt screen much, much better with Black letters on White.
Comment on initial boot screen. If someone is having issues and has
to use the pfix=nox option the graphics for Keyboard, Country and
Time Zone still come up? Depending on machine troubles video
driver or otherwise is this good idea? Perhaps no graphics at all
should come up if you use pfix=nox since you are looking for only
the shell prompt?
Hope this is helpfull.
-Ken
Downloaded image and burned OK. System now starts as expected.
Results of several runs:
Video is correct in /etc/X11/xorg.conf Matrox G550 1024x768 16 Deep
and displays properly with the GUI.
CD Plextor CD-R PX-240A comes up as SCSI is actually 'IDE' CD-RW?
SCSI devices recognized on both controllers. SCSI Disk & DLT tape.
Audio not working. Does not recognize Crystal 4237b. Was popular chip?
Part of motherboard not a plug in card.
NIC gets assigned as 3C59x seems to work but is really 3C918/3C905b?
Seamonkey runs videos on either CNN or YouTube choppy and slow!
Gpated appears to work OK. Setup at different times ext4 or ext2 parts.
Swap partition created OK.
Universal Installer says SCSI not implemented so I tried IDE/SATA
Chose sdb
Frugal
Folder puppy423
* no matter how sdb is setup ext2 or ext4 always says it's ext4?
Says complete but there is nothing on sdb?
Grub fails on sdb with ext4. With ext2 seems to apply files however
when it gets to installing MBR on prime drive /sda it goes to sleep.
Drivers from Forum for mount.cifs download OK and installs Pet OK.
I can mount cif shares on my NAS server. Maybe include in pkg.
Mount.cifs worked and downloaded OK under Puppy 4.2.1.
I notice installing Pet no longer part in Installer program. Took a
couple of minutes to figure that one out. I know your just testing me.
Console rxvt screen much, much better with Black letters on White.
Comment on initial boot screen. If someone is having issues and has
to use the pfix=nox option the graphics for Keyboard, Country and
Time Zone still come up? Depending on machine troubles video
driver or otherwise is this good idea? Perhaps no graphics at all
should come up if you use pfix=nox since you are looking for only
the shell prompt?
Hope this is helpfull.
-Ken
-
tempestuous
- Posts: 5464
- Joined: Fri 10 Jun 2005, 05:12
- Location: Australia
Nothing new there. The Crystal (Cirrus Logic) CS4237B is an ISA-based audio chipset, and ALSA cannot easily detect ISA based audio devices.Kenny-M wrote:Audio not working. Does not recognize Crystal 4237b.
Run the ALSA Sound Wizard, go to the "Legacy" section, and select "cs4236". This actually selects the snd-cs4236 ALSA driver.
If no success, follow my instructions for a similar setup here
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 5272#85272