Re: kernel issues
Thank you Fredrick, this is very helpful.
My plan now is to stick with the 2.6.x series of kernels since the 2.4.x
kernels will not be compatible with the Debian port.
I also just tried your suggestion and cranked down the bandwidth on this
card to 20 MB/s to be on the conservative side. But alas, the machine
hang exactly the same way. Interestingly, when I set the rate in the
bios at boot up to 40 MB/s, the bios then changed the rate to 20 MB/s on
the actual device when doing the initialization of the devices. Since I
only have two devices on the card (vax-2 packet loader, and the vxa-2
tape drive, both Exabyte products) this is as simple a scsi chain as I
can get. Then I changed the speed to 20 MB/s at the bios thinking I
would match the card interpretation of the device speed. After that,
the diagnostics changed the speed to 10 MB/s.
I also wonder if an earlier kernel (say the 2.6.8 kernel that is in the
Debian packaging) will run better.
finally, what scsi card will work best with this arch ? I don't really
care about the brand name, I just want one that works ! I had great
success with the symbios cards on the alpha machines. Is there a
preferred scsi card on the amd64 machines for Linux (Debian) ?
On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 08:47 +0100, Frederik Schueler wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 05:39:23PM -0500, James D. Freels wrote:
> > I would like to revert from 2.6.14 to 2.4.32 and try the older drivers
> > for a while.
>
> This will not be possible with the 64bit userland: the libc does support
> NPTL only and has no legacy linuxthreads support, thus the system will
> refuse to boot.
>
>
> > However, when I started the menuconfig, I discovered there is not a
> > "processor type" for the AMD Optoren. There is AMD Hammer, Intel
> > x86-64, and generic x86-64. I am guessing I need the generic x86-64.
>
> No, AMD Hammer is the correct architecture for Athlon64/FX and Opterons.
>
>
> > Is this correct ? Will the amd64 in 64-bit mode run on a 2.4.x kernel ?
>
> not with the debian port.
>
>
> > Should I revert to a lower 2.6.x kernel ? The troublesome driver is the
> > "Adaptec AIC7xxx Fast -> U160 support (New Driver)" ?
>
> try lowering the speed settings in the adapter bios: if it's set to 160,
> lower it to 80 or 40 and see if it works then. Some devices are picky
> with controllers and settings, and from my experience adaptec ones are
> not always the most cooperative controlers in this concern.
>
> HTH
> Frederik Schueler
>
--
Freels, James D. <freelsjd@ornl.gov>
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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