Re: Newbie Question: Linux & ATA100 Drives
----- Original Message -----
From: Soul Computer <scwawcaac@earthlink.net>
To: <scwawcaac@earthlink.net>; <scwawcaac@hotmail.com>
Cc: Debian User <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 11:44 PM
Subject: Newbie Question: Linux & ATA100 Drives
> My documentation indicates that the ATA100 controller will boot to DOS. I
was
> wondering if this meant the controller, and the drives on it, would also
boot
> to Linux? I would assume that the drivers would have to be loaded for
optimum
> performance, but this is an *old* computer, and getting a new drive for it
> that is *not* ATA100 is out of the question.
>
> ->Scwawcaac<-
>
Yes it will boot to Linux.
Personally I prefer to boot to DOS and then use LOADLIN to boot Linux. This
avoids all the hassle that people seem to have with lilo (I've never tried
lilo cos everything I hear about it seems like pain and grief); it doesn't
really slow things down - one line autoexec.bat, no config.sys, DOS boots
more or less instantly! You can pass it all the lilo-type boot parameters
with a response file, and you don't get the problem of not being able to
boot because lilo is misconfigured, or the 1024 cylinder problem.
I don't think there's a driver _problem_; I didn't have to worry about
drivers cos the kernel suplied with the distro worked just fine; if your
machine is *old* I'm sure the drivers will be there! (though I am ready to
be corrected on this) but you may have to set your boot parameters to force
ATA100 mode; sorry, I'm not on my Linux box at the moment and I can't
remember the syntax.
I don't understand why you want to put an ATA100 drive in an *old* computer!
Surely if the machine is old and slow having a drive that transfers data
really fast is a bit pointless. And if it's old, does it even support ATA100
at all?
If you really want to speed your *old* machine up with a disk upgrade, get
SCSI. I find 10MHz SCSI and 66MHz UDMA (ATA66) seem about as fast as each
other in overall terms (600MHz processor) because SCSI doesn't force the CPU
to wait for it as much as IDE.
I also find that one of my local computer shops tends to throw perfectly
good SCSI drives away because not many people have SCSI buses, so I've got a
great stack of the things for not a lot!
Pigeon
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