[conspire] (forw) Re: June 25 MP installfest upgrade RH 7.3 PC to Centos56 continuation

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from wood eddie <ewood111 at yahoo.com> -----

Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2011 00:00:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: wood eddie <ewood111 at yahoo.com>
To: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
Subject: June 25 MP installfest upgrade RH 7.3 PC to Centos56 continuation
X-Mailer: YahooMailClassic/14.0.3 YahooMailWebService/0.8.112.307740

Hi Rick:

I am now getting loading AIX7xxx driver system appears hung when boot up
centos 5.6 DVD.  Found http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=1107 but is
there a alternative like linux noprobe specifying 2940 SCSI Host
Adapter, the two SCSI disk, one SCSI CD ROM plus the IDE DVD reader,
3C509 NIC, Diamond Stealth 64DRAM video ? Do you know command to do
this, rather than upgrade MB Bios and SCSI Bios which appears more
difficult ?

Thx, Eddie

[Snip Eddie quoting the entire preceding thread.]


----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2011 09:59:18 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: wood eddie <ewood111 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: June 25 MP installfest upgrade RH 7.3 PC to Centos56
	continuation
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Quoting wood eddie (ewood111 at yahoo.com):

> Hi Rick:
> 
> I am now getting loading AIX7xxx driver system appears hung when boot
> up centos 5.6 DVD.  Found http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=1107 but
> is there a alternative like linux noprobe specifying 2940 SCSI Host
> Adapter, the two SCSI disk, one SCSI CD ROM plus the IDE DVD reader,
> 3C509 NIC, Diamond Stealth 64DRAM video ? Do you know command to do
> this, rather than upgrade MB Bios and SCSI Bios which appears more
> difficult ?

Your question appears to rest under the assumption that there's a very
serious bug in the aic7xxx driver in the CentOS 5.6 installer kernel
that prevents even booting the CentOS 5.6 DVD on your hardware.  While I
guess that is possible in theory, I think such a bug is very unlikely,
for one fundamental reason:  There are a tremendous number of Linux server
systems in the field using Adaptec HBAs requiring that driver.  It's the 
most common SCSI chipset in computing history, with LSI Logic's probably
a distant second.  For example, linuxmafia.com's server, which is a
2001-era VA Linux Systems model 2230, has one built into its
motherboard:

[   20.072048] scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 7.0
[   20.072056]         <Adaptec aic7896/97 Ultra2 SCSI adapter>
[   20.072061]         aic7896/97: Ultra2 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs
[   20.072066] 

Because so _very_ many existing systems would be affected, I think the
possibility of a pervasive, boot-preventing bug in that driver is very,
very low.


I'm sorry to say, I cannot tell you at a distance what exactly is wrong
with your system, but would encourage you to do some diagnosis on a
hardware and BIOS Setup level, because there is definitely something
fundamental wrong, and attempting 'linux noprobe' options so as to avoid
probing for the Adaptec chip is not going to get you closer to the
answer.

For example, there may be some misconfiguration in the Adaptec SCSI 
BIOS Setup (Ctrl-A to access), or in your motherboard BIOS Setup, that
is interfering with and preventing correct operation at a hardware
level.

It might be best for you to bring your machine back over to my house,
and I can attempt to figure out what's wrong.  If nothing else, we can
see if your Adaptec AHA-2940 is functional in one of my spare machines,
and I might also (probably also) have a spare PCI-type Adaptec card with
which we can cross-check.  I very certainly have extra SCSI cabling and
hard drives.

The underlying problem might be something that will be obvious to me
when I examine your system.  Alternatively (though I think this
unlikely), it's possible that the AHA-2940 you bought is defective, or
is set up with grossly incorrect SCSI termination, or is badly
misconfigured.  I cannot say until I have examined your system.  In my
experience, unless one screws up SCSI termination, or grossly
misconfigures the SCSI HBA, SCSI equipment, especially quality gear like
Adaptec 2940 cards, should Just Work.

I am not entirely sure what times will work best, but you are welcome to
telephone me at 650-283-7902 (cellular) to see if I'm home.  I do
bicycle commuting from 15 miles away, but it's difficult to predict in
advance on any given day when I'm likely to arrive home.



----- End forwarded message -----