Libata. How do I get it going??!

Hi,

I'm probably being a complete idiot but please don't let that stop you helping me. I've got an Si3112 and i'm trying to use libata as i've heard it's the bees knees. I'm running fedora core 1 but I've recently downloaded and built 2.6.0 from kernel.org. I believe libata is built into 2.6.0 ? What options do I need to set/unset when I do the 'make config' step to tell the kernel to use libata? Or do i start it up some other way? Is there a FAQ or HOWTO for libata?

Please help as i've been getting rubbish performance out of my SATA drive and those bloody sata_error messages flooding my screen for ages. I really thought that 2.6 would sort it. I'm at the point where i'm about to give up and go back to XP.


thanks in advance

Try here:

http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/ind...showtopic=7613

And here:

http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/1667

And here:

http://lists.parisc-linux.org/piperm...er/021709.html

good luck

thanks but none of those 3 really helps.

should I be loading libata as a module? how would I do that?

or should I be building it into the kernel ? how would I do that?

if I build it into the kernel, how do I make sure it uses that driver for my HD? Is it a boot option?



ta.

Ok, well try here:

http://lwn.net/Articles/52488/

And here:

www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/ jgarzik/libata/libata.pdf

I'm sorry can't give you much more than that

You need support for your SATA drive built into the kernel.
And yes, libata is already in the 2.6.x.y kernels, as well
as the 2.4.27 > kernels, iirc. I would suggest you get the
latest kernel source from http://kernel.org/mirrors/

Now, I have no clue how Fedora works, nor what happens when
you build your own kernel for Fedora.

To have libata support for your SATA drives you need the
following in your kernel:

bruce@silas:~$ cat ~/kernel/linux-2.6.13.4/.config | grep SATA
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDE_SATA is not set
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA=y
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SVW is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_NV is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_PROMISE is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_QSTOR is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SX4 is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIL is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SIS is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_ULI is not set
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_VIA=y
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_VITESSE is not set

If you know how to build kernels, then build in support for
your particular chipset. Mine is VIA, yours is probably SIL.

It would also help if you post what you consider poor performance,
and also your SATA error messages. I have 2 SATA drives in this
box. There are no kernel errors, and this is my performance:

root@silas:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sda /dev/sdb

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   1912 MB in  2.00 seconds = 955.19 MB/sec
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(null) (wait for flush complete) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
 Timing buffered disk reads:  154 MB in  3.01 seconds =  51.22 MB/sec
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(null) (wait for flush complete) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   1920 MB in  2.01 seconds = 956.80 MB/sec
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(null) (wait for flush complete) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
 Timing buffered disk reads:  174 MB in  3.03 seconds =  57.40 MB/sec
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(null) (wait for flush complete) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

The present libata support in the Linux kernel is still undergoing
lots of development. Since the hardware manufacturers don't make
drivers for Linux, and some (Nvidia for one) don't even release any
code about their boards, SATA drive performance in Linux is not as
good as it is in Windoze today. But, it's improving.