Anyone know of a distro that can install the Compaq Smart Array 2 raid controllers right off that bat? I've RTFM, and it seems that the only choice is to craft a custom boot disk, which is an agonizingly complicated process. I've tried Slackware and even gave FreeBSD a shot, but they don't have the ida driver and devices setup in the default installs.

thanks.

I installed redhat 7.1 on a Compaq Proliant 2500.
Dual pp200, smart array 2 with 3 disks:
(1) 4g as Raid0, and (2x18.2) as Raid1

Everything was reconized from the getgo except memory since the legacy board only reported 16mb

If you have this problem you need to type at the boot prompt:
linux mem=exactmap mem=640K@0 mem=48M@1M
assuming you have 48M installed memory

Once redhat is installed you have to edit lilo.conf and add
append="mem=48M" and run lilo, then reboot.

-Tom

Check out suse.com and look through the hardware database. http://cdb.suse.de/cgi-bin/scdb?HTML...m&LANG=ENGLISH

Unfortunately, any distrobution can advertise what the current kernels support. In fact Compaq itself is supplying Linux drivers for this particular unit.

However, installation is an entirely different challenge. Whether the generic kernels in boot images carry the particular driver I need (in order to allow partitioning and device access) is another matter.

For those of you interested, i found this:

http://spice.ascio.net/~kop/slackwar...ray-HOWTO.html

a while ago, but these are slack 7.1 disks, and I'm trying to get things working for 8.0. I know it shouldn't matter, but the boot disk supplied didn't work for me. It might just be my own unique problem, so give it a shot anyway.