Successful Debian Potato install on Compaq Proliant 2500 (was RE: Floppy Install - Need drivers for scsi raid controller)
I'm a week or three late replying to this message, but I just thought I'd
put in my two bits on the issue. I don't know if my experience will be of
any help to anyone but I'll do a brain dump nonetheless.
I successfully installed Debian Potato on a Proliant 2500 with a pair of
Compaq Smart 2/P PCI RAID controllers. The "primary" controller is attached
to an external RAID tower, and the "secondary" controller is attached to the
internal RAID bay. In addition, it has another onboard scsi controller for
the tape drive. Not sure of the chipset on that because it's at home and
I'm at work right now.
I had previously succesfully installed RH7 on this box, so I knew that it
was possible to run the controllers under Linux.
After a bit of experimentation and reading, I discovered that the "compact"
series of boot floppies include smart-2 drivers. Once I built those
floppies, though, the battle wasn't over -- the compact boot kernel only has
/dev/ entries for a single controller; I had to manually mknod the entries
for the second controller (/dev/ida/c0p0... and so on).
It wouldn't have been an issue to get this running during the install
process, but I wanted to install such that the system booted off the
internal drive array instead of the external, and the internal array was on
the secondary controller... so I had to create the /dev/ida/c1d0p... nodes
for the secondary controller on the ramdisk during the first-stage install,
so that it would see and install to the correct array.
Then I was able to install to the secondary controller and internal array;
root went on /dev/c1d0p0 or something.
Anyways... I was actually surprised at how easy it was, once I figured out
that I needed the Compact boot floppies and that I also needed to manually
create a series of /dev/ida/c1d0p... nodes for the install to find.
So, hopefully this info will be of use to someone... I'd be happy to fill in
more details if anyone has any questions.
Shaun Crossley, Technician
shaun@kootenaycomputers.com
Kootenay Computers (1995) Inc.
250-365-2323 (voice)
250-365-0151 (fax)
-----Original Message-----
From: Bernie Boudet [mailto:bb-list@ciservices.fsbusiness.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, Jul 12, 2001 3:22 AM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Floppy Install - Need drivers for scsi raid controller
Hi,
I'm trying to do a "vanilla" Debian floppy install (rescue + root +
driver-1,2,3,4).
The system boots ok from the rescue disk and I get the boot: prompt, to
which I hit return. Linux loads and I am prompted to insert the root
floppy, which I do and hit return, the setup program loads and I get as far
as the first step to select the keyboard layout. Everything ok so far,
AFAICT.
The next step is to "Preload essential modules from a floppy". It seems,
the scsi controller is not recognised. So I must follow this step, and
insert the driver-1 floppy. After selecting yes, I get a dialog: "Critical
Error - Cannot mount the floppy. Stop"
I'm guessing that is isn't the correct install sequence, but after reading
the install manual (specifically chapters 5, 6 & 7) I still can't see what I
did wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The system I am trying to install to is a Compaq Proliant 4500. It has a
5-disk scsi array controlled by a SMART raid controller in slot 1 of the
EISA bus. There is also a NCR scsi controller embedded on the motherboard,
this is used for the CD-ROM and DAT drive. If anyone has done an install to
similar hardware, I would be interested to hear about any other problems I
might expect.
Thanks.
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