Newbie first-time install advice: Highpoint Rocket 133SB
I am about to install Linux for the first time in the next week or two,
as soon as I finish backing up my old hard drive.
I received a WD 160 GB hard drive as a gift earlier this year, but have
not found a chance to install it until now. I assumed I could just plug
it in, but when I began reading about it I realized that my old PC
(circa 2000) cannot handle IDE drives larger than 137 GB. Further
reading helped me understand that buying a newer IDE controller would
allow me to use the big drive.
I plan a multiboot system with Windows XP (and maybe a couple of other
OSes), and I have on-hand all of the drivers and docs I need to make
that work. Unfortunately, I am still unclear about how to allow Debian
to support the IDE controller.
First, several retailers listed Debian as a distro for which there is
Rocket 133SB support. But the Highpoint website itself provides no such
support, except for source code for the drivers (which hopefully
compiles and functions for Debian). Unfortunately, I am a newbie and
have no idea (at this time) how to take advantage of those sources.
Even if I did, I don't have an installed Linux with which to compile
them.
Second, when reading about "stable" Debian I seemed to find that the
kernel doesn't quite support large LBA48 hard drives, an issue quite
aside from support for the controller card. Unfortunately, I had
already downloaded and burned 3.0r2 CDs of disk 1 and disk 5 (bf2.4),
thinking those would be all I needed. Being a newbie, I thought
sticking with "stable" would be a better idea until I become more
familiar with how Linux works.
After discovering the LBA48 road block, I searched around a little and
found the HILUX website -- an update for "stable" with a kernel (2.4.26)
which should support LBA48. It was just after I downloaded and burned
that mini-CD that it occurred to me that the Rocket 133SB controller
might not be supported. When I went looking for info about that, I
arrived at my current state of confusion.
I would rather install from CD, since I am a total newbie (with Linux)
and doubt I could make my DSL connection work if it did not autodetect.
But just in case, I downloaded a Sarge netinst CD a couple of weeks
ago. (Since then, I have simply been finishing the backup job on the
old drive before I start playing around inside the case -- I have other
new hardware to install besides the Rocket controller.)
If any Debian users out there have comments or advice before I begin my
big experiment (I look forward to it, even if I do have lots of
problems!), please speak up. I will be beginning in the next week or
two -- as soon as I have a couple of days off from work after I finish
backing up -- so there is still time for me to learn the right way
before I learn the HARD way!
TIA,
Dave Witbrodt
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