Gentoo Archives: gentoo-alpha

From: "Jean-Sébastien Guay" <jean_seb@×××××××××.ca>
To: Gentoo-Alpha Mailing List <gentoo-alpha@l.g.o>
Subject: [gentoo-alpha] MILO and Adaptec AHA2940AU
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 01:36:08
Message-Id: 42E04D02.4010009@videotron.ca
1 Hello everyone,
2
3 I have a hardware-related question for you guys and gals today. I want
4 to install a new HDD in my Alpha XL-366 (XLT system type,
5 AlphaBIOS-only, so I'm stuck with MILO...). Now, the first problem is
6 that I can't run it off the onboard sym53c810 SCSI controller, because
7 (as I understand it) it is a Wide SCSI-2 device, and the sym53c810 only
8 supports Fast SCSI-2, and the problem is that the kernel driver tries to
9 set the controller to Wide which causes errors to be continuously
10 printed to the console.
11
12 (See
13 http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-alpha@××××××××××××.org/msg22571.html
14 for a description of the exact same problem. That person solved it by
15 patching the kernel driver to turn off Wide mode, which is a bit drastic
16 and I don't want to do it each time I build my kernel...)
17
18 So what I'm trying now is to run the drive off an Adaptec AHA2940AU
19 controller I had in another unused machine. The controller and drive are
20 detected on bootup, I see them in the BIOS, so all seems peachy. But
21 when MILO starts up and tries to detect the machine's devices (after
22 typing in a "boot" command, or when doing an "ls" for example), it hangs
23 right after detecting the Adaptec controller.
24
25 See https://www.redhat.com/archives/axp-list/2002-August/msg00185.html
26 (first 1/3 of the message), where the same problem is described.
27
28 First question is why does MILO 2.2-18 hang when loading the Adaptec
29 driver? Is it a known bug with this hardware/software combination?
30
31 That person says that downgrading to MILO 2.2-17 allowed him to boot.
32 When I try that version, it hangs at "Swapping to PALcode at
33 0x80080000". I even tried linload.exe version 1.3a and 1.5, both give
34 the same problem. How do I get MILO 2.2-17 to boot?
35
36 Of course, if someone could tell me how to disable Wide mode in my
37 2.6.11.8 kernel's sym53c8xx driver without having to hack the code at
38 each kernel upgrade, that would (probably) solve the root problem and
39 eliminate the need for the Adaptec controller. I saw that passing
40 'sym53c8xx="wide:0"' to the kernel in the boot command would do the
41 trick, if the sym53c8xx driver were built as a module. But the
42 controller is needed to boot at all, so I have to compile it into the
43 kernel or else the kernel starts but doesn't see the root device, and
44 with the driver compiled into the kernel it doesn't check those
45 arguments (argh). One solution could be to install an IDE controller
46 with a small IDE drive to boot from, and then compile the sym53c8xx
47 driver as a module, but I'd like to keep that as a last resort and try
48 to make it work with what I have first.
49
50 I anxiously await any suggestions. Thanks in advance,
51
52 J-S
53 <http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-alpha@××××××××××××.org/msg22571.html>
54
55 --
56 ___________________________________________
57 Jean-Sébastien Guay jean_seb@×××××××××.ca
58 http://whitestar02.webhop.org/
59
60
61
62 --
63 gentoo-alpha@g.o mailing list

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