highpoint rocketraid 1820a and debian

melbell · 03-30-2006, 09:56 AM

I'm a linux newb and I'm trying to install debian amd64 (sarge) on a raid 5 array with a highpoint rocketraid 1820a controller and 3 sata harddrives. I found the walkthrough for installing debian sarge on hihgpoint rocketraid 1820a and i've tried to follow the instructions which are basically to compile a kernel that is the same as the one you are trying to install on the raid 5 array and then to compile the controller drivers with that kernel and dump them into the install files.

At first I was using the unofficial stable release of debian sarge for amd64 the kernel image on that cd is labeled as 2.6.8-11-amd64-generic I tried compiling raid controller drivers with kernel source for linux-2.6.8 and linux-2.6.8.1 and neither one worked and there were no other version of 2.6.8 that I could find. So then I downloaded the netinstall testing disc for amd 64 which has a kerneml image called 2.6.15-1-amd64-generic and I tried to compile the raid controller drivers with kernel source for linux-2.6.15 linux-2.6.15.1 and linux-2.6.15.6. None of this has worked so I have a couple of questions.

First. I assumed 2.6.15-1-amd64-generic was referring to kernel 2.6.15.1 Is this correct?
second. when I compile the kernel I've been using "make menuconfig" and the only thing I change there is to check and make sure that amd64 athlon is selected for the processor but they also offer an x86_64 generic is this what I should be selecting?

Last bit I should mention is that with the new testing boot disk using kernel 2.6.15.x I can at least see the sata drives and partition them. Debian install lets me setup raid partitions for software raid. i'm considering giving up on the hardware raid from highpoint and just move on to the software raid.

melbell · 03-30-2006, 09:58 AM

If it helps any here's the steps I've been following and the error message I receive.

install debian from testing amd64 disk on an ide drive that is on the same amd64 board that the raid 5 array is connected to.
boot off the ide drive and run the following commands

Code:

apt-get install kernel-package libncurses5-dev fakeroot wget bzip2
cd/usr/src
wget the httppart I'm not allowed to post.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.x.x.tar.bz2
tar xjf linux-2.6.x.x.tar.bz2
cd linux-2.6.x.x
make menuconfig

in menuconfig I just make sure that amd64 athlon cpu is specified (as mentioned before) (I have also tried loading the config file from the ide drive install of debian and the compiled drivers still didn't work but I may have been using the wrong version of the kernel I'll try that again)

next I type the following commands and let the kernel compile and then reboot the machine off the ide drive.(agian I'm loading the newly compiled kernel onto the ide drive)

Code:

make-kpkg clean
fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --revision=custom1.x kernel_image
cd ../
dpkg -i kernel-image-2.6.x.x_custom.1.x_amd64.deb

next I download the opensource highpoint rocketraid 1820a drivers and use the following command to compile the driver. Once the driver is compiled I burn it to cd. The driver file is hptmv.ko

Code:

make KERNELDIR=/usr/src/linux-2.6.x.x

now I boot off the installation CD and after the detect network hardware step I jumpt to tty 2 and do the following.

Code:

umount /cdrom

eject the install cd and put in the cd with the drivers

Code:

mount /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /cdrom
cp /cdrom/hptmv.ko /lib/modules/2.6.15-1-amd64-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi
depmod -a
modprobe hptmv

after which point I get the following error.

Code:

FATAL: Error inserting hptmv (/lib/modules/2.6.15-1-amd64-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/hptmv.ko): 
Invalid module format