Re: how to control/override dev assigment 3ware and USB

[RParr <RParr@TemporalArts.COM>]

Jurij Smakov wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 05:25:13PM -0700, RParr wrote:
>   
> > I am still unable to get Debian installed on this machine.
> >
> > I AM able to boot Knoppix LiveCD and NOT have any device conflicts.  
> > Knoppix (5.0.1) assigns the 3ware /dev/sde and the USB card reader as 
> > /dev/sda, sdb, sdc, and sdd and thus has no conflict.
> >
> > I used the Debian netinst to boot into rescue mode, change the apt 
> > sources.list from etch to sid and dist-upgrade.  That went well and the 
> > system is now booting the 2.6.17 kernel but still freezing because 
> > /dev/sde is reassigned.
> >
> > I have already edited /etc/default/bootlogd to enable boot logging but I 
> > get no logs.
> >
> > 1) Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can log the initial boot up 
> > stuff and figure out if something is getting assigned to /dev/sda (and 
> > thus starting the USB reading at /dev/sdb) or if the USB assignment is 
> > just wrong.
> >
> > 2) Does anyone know how best to prevent the USB drive assignments from 
> > happening.
> >     
>
> Hi,
>
> You can "blacklist" a module, so that it's not going to be automatically loaded by 
> udev, even if a device is present. To do that, assuming the name of the module is 
> foo, you should create an arbitrarily named file in /etc/modprobe.d directory, 
> with contents
>
> blacklist foo
>
> You can (hopefully) try to blacklist modules usbcore, ehci_hcd and uhci_hcd to 
> disable USB devices. To be honest, I don't think that device naming conflict is 
> responsible for the hang, but so far I have no clue what might cause it. What CD 
> image are you using? What are the last messages on the screen that you see?
>
>   

The blacklisting did not work (maybe because these drivers are built 
into the kernel?)

I did get them to not load by pulling the plug on the USB card reader.

You're right, they were not the cause (although I still think the whole 
/dev/sde assignment thingy is going to be problem later).

Now, booting gets to the part where it says waiting for root filesystem 
and hangs.  Before it got to the same place, spit out the USB card 
reader detection and hung.

A ways back in the boot process, the 3Ware 8006 controller was found, 
module, loaded, etc.  and the booting is being done from the /boot/ 
directory on that root partition/filesystem.

It should be noted that I can boot Knoppix 5.0.1, Kubuntu 6.06, and can 
install Kubuntu 6.06 on this machine with none of these problems.

Any guidance would be most appreciated; especially any way to capture 
the early boot messages; /etc/default/bootlogd enabling does not seem to 
help.

Thanks
R.Parr, RHCE, Temporal Arts