Maxtor Ultra ATA-133 controller under SME?

Yo-DUH_87 · 06-08-2003, 02:56 PM

Ok, so after trying to decide on a Linux server OS, I finaly settled on SME server (http://www.e-smith.org). Now, I have a hardware related question.

I purchaced 2 Maxtor 160 GB drives for my main comptuer, and with those drives I got the "bonus" Maxtor Ultra ATA-133 controller. Apparently is is a relabled Promise 133 TX2 controller, according to Maxtor.

So my question is: will this work under SME 5.6? I found the other thread (here) that said that you need kernel 2.4.7 or above, but I'm not sure as to exactaly what SME uses (website just says 2.4.x)...

Anyone know/tried?

Also, anyone know how SME would handle a 80 GB hard drive (planning on using it as a small network file/mp3 server)?

Thanks!

jailbait · 06-08-2003, 03:46 PM

About two years ago I bought a Maxtor Ultra ATA-100 controller using a Promise chipset. It was horribly buggy. The kernel developers eventually wrote a driver which began working around some of the bugs. I kept compiling new kernels as each stable 2.4.x release was announced and things got better as time progressed. But my controller card still gives me the occasional hardware error. I have been following the kernel.org mailing list and I expect more fixes in 2.4.21 when it is released.

The Promise chipset that you have is a later version of the chipset that I am using. Both use the same kernel driver. Therefore you should have about the same results with 2.4.20 that I do, it works, but not 100%. I suggest that you download 2.4.21 when it is available and compile your own kernel, which is what I am going to do.

I also bought 2 Maxtor drives with my "free" controller. I have never had any problem with the drives.

Even if you get a kernel driver that works around the Promise bugs you still might have problems at power up. When I power up, the Promise chip sometimes does not initialize properly and it gets stuck during bios initialization. The only solution is to power down and power up again.

Yo-DUH_87 · 06-08-2003, 03:51 PM

Well, recompiling my own kernel would be just fine, except I have no clue as to how I would go about that for SME. Any suggestions? I don't know much about Linux, and SME is a command-line only distro (there is no GUI, other than the gateway configuration menu).

Thanks for your input

jailbait · 06-08-2003, 09:15 PM

Compiling the kernel is independent of what distribution you are using. It is
the same for SME as for any other distribution. The kernel is compiled at the command line so the fact that SME has no GUI is irrelevant. Whatever kernel SME provides can safely be replaced by a later release of the kernel.

To compile the kernel you first need to download it from:

http://www.kernel.org/

You want the latest stable kernel which is currently 2.4.20. However, 2.4.21 is going through its last pre-release versions and my guess is that a stable 2.4.21 will be ready within a week.

Compiling a kernel the first time is fairly daunting. I suggest that you
install SME with the kernel as supplied by SME. Get that working as best you can and you can judge whether the Promise chip set support in the SME distribution is adequate or not. If not, download the latest stable kernel and compile it to your own specifications. You can find a HOWTO for the kernel at:

http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO/

By compiling the kernel yourself you will end up with a smaller, faster kernel. For example, the SME kernel will contain drivers for all IDE hardware. You only need the drivers for your two IDE chipsets, motherboard and Promise. If your motherboard chipset happens to be bug free then the generic IDE support is fine. As a general rule you can select exactly what you need versus the SME kernel which will have everything that anybody might need compiled in.

The main problem with compiling a kernel for the first time is that you have to configure every kernel option, many of which you never heard of. So you have to find out what each option means before you decide to include or exclude it.

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Algebra was easy for the Romans, X is always 10

The Romans had a hard time with base 16.
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Yo-DUH_87 · 06-08-2003, 09:56 PM

Thanks, you have given me more to study and think on. I'll consider it closely

Quote:

The Romans had a hard time with base 16.

haha

Yo-DUH_87 · 06-13-2003, 04:10 PM

Well, the 2.4.21 kernel is out, have you tried it yet?

I've been doing some reading on the kernel upgrading, and I think I can do it, but I won't be doing any "Advanced trimming" to the kernel install

jailbait · 06-13-2003, 06:03 PM

I just finished downloading kernel 2.4.21. I will probably install it this weekend.

The errors I get on my Maxtor card occur at about the rate of two or three per week. It may take a week or two before I am sure how effective 2.4.21 is for curing the problem. Whenever I am sure I will post the results here.

jailbait · 06-20-2003, 03:45 PM

I have tried to install kernel 2.4.21 several times this past week. I have not been able to create a working kernel. I have a SIS chipset on my motherboard. 2.4.21 contains large changes to SIS support ans does not work. I applied the ac1 patch (which contains roughly 20,000 lines of patch for SIS support) to the 2.4.21 kernel but I can't get the patched kernel to work either. I am going to lay 2.4.21 aside and go on to other things.

I never got far enough with the new kernel to test Promise chipset support.