Hello, I'm a new slack user. I bought a used sever so that I can learn Slackware without screwing up my other boxes. Right now, I'm trying to install Slackware 12.2 and I am stuck at partitioning my drives. I'm trying to install on a hardware RAID-0 array. I've already
setup my two drives in the bios and loaded the hugesmp.s kernel at boot. When I get to using fdisk, I get a message stating that Slackware is "unable to open" my drives.

Here is my setup:
HP Proliant DL 360 Gen 3 Server (Dual 2.8 Ghz Xeon CPUs, 1U form factor Rack Server)
5 gigs of ram
HP Smart Array 5i Slot 0 (64 MB Vers. 2.58)
2x 146.8 Gb Ultra 320 SCSI drives set up in RAID-0
(The controller sees it as "Logical Drive # 1, RAID 0, 273.5 GB, OK")
Slackware 12.2 (Installing from CDs)
Using hugesmp.s kernel at the boot prompt.

I've tried using:
#fdisk /dev/rd/c0d0 and #fdisk /dev/ida/c0d0

I receive these messages for each command:
Unable to open /dev/re/c0d0
Unable to open /dev/ida/c0d0

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. What do you guys think?

Have you tried looking at some of the documentation that comes with slackware with respect to RAID arrays?

Hint: README_RAID.txt

found here:http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/sla...EADME_RAID.TXT

When in doubt, RTM.

Too see shat your disks are being recognized as you could try running this from the command line (before running setup or anything)
That will show what the disks are being recognized as. You may then proceed with cfdisk or whatever.

Make sure as well that the output of 'dmesg' is showing the controller driver/module/support being loaded. If Slack is not picking of the controller then you won't see anything. I'm almost sure that the Smart controllers are supported ..

I did some searching around on the net earlier and found the dmesg command. I piped it with more and found it as "/dev/ccis/c0d0".
I tried setting it up like this:
2081.00 /Swap c0d0p1
2081.00 /Root c0d0p2
289455.83 /Home /var c0d0p3

I figured that it would give me 10 gigs for the first two.
I ran out of space when the program was installing to /etc toward the end. I'll etch-a-sketch the drives and just do a swap and linux partition. I'm curious, how do you guys like to do your partitions?

Thanks for the tips, I'm giving it a try now.
I'll let you know how it worked.

-Edit-
Doh! Realized that the 1st two were set for 2 gigs.. trying again.

Thanks for the link C-Sniper. I looked at it earlier today. It only covers software raid. I haven't had any luck with finding one on hardware. Anychance that you might have a link?

I got it installed, so I thought that it would be appropiate to reply back on my Slack box.

After playing around with the partitions the system would still halt on the boot up process. *(It was like the drives had no OS on it.)

Each one was a different installation attempt: (Full Install)
-Tried once with option 1, 2nd time with install lilo to MBR.

10 Gig/Swap c0d0p1, Boot-10Gig/Root c0d0p2, Remainder/Home c0d0p3
10 Gig/Swap c0d0p1, Boot-Remainder/Root c0d0p2
Boot-Remainder of drive/Root c0d0p1, 10 Gig/Swap c0d0p2

For some reason I'm not able to boot from the drives after I ran the lilo setup. The system boots from the floppy fine though.
Do you guys have any ideas on where I went wrong?

Check out your lilo.conf (in /etc/lilo.conf). Something is wrong in it. Post it.

You do not have to repeat installation when the setup of bootmanger (lilo) fails.
You need to correct your lilo.conf and after this run lilo command.
Put in your boot media (cd, dvd or floppy) and when it shows the boot screen, boot right into your root partition. If you don't know what is your root partition (/dev/c0d0p2 or something else) just boot in from booting media then type cfdisk (no cfdisk /dev/xxx).
After this you should get into your newlly installed system. (This requires that the setup process was completed)

That worked like a charm, thanks hua!
I used "boot: hugesmp.s root=/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 rdinit= ro" to boot into the system. Sorry for the delay xterm kept crashing on me in kde 3.5 , I decided to save that issue for another time. lol

Here is my lilo config file.

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
# Append any additional kernel parameters:
append=" vt.default_utf8=0"
boot = /dev/cciss/c0d0p1

# Boot BMP Image.
# Bitmap in BMP format: 640x480x8
bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp
# Menu colors (foreground, background, shadow, highlighted
# foreground, highlighted background, highlighted shadow):
bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0
# Location of the option table: location x, location y, number of
# columns, lines per column (max 15), "spill" (this is how many
# entries must be in the first column before the next begins to
# be used. We don't specify it here, as there's just one column.
bmp-table = 60,6,1,16
# Timer location x, timer location y, foreground color,
# background color, shadow color.
bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255

# Standard menu.
# Or, you can comment out the bitmap menu above and
# use a boot message with the standard menu:
#message = /boot/boot_message.txt

# Wait until the timeout to boot (if commented out, boot the
# first entry immediately):
prompt
# Timeout before the first entry boots.
# This is given in tenths of a second, so 600 for every minute:
timeout = 1200
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga = 791
# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/cciss/c0d0p1
label = Linux
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

I also get a message that the file system couldn't be checked because it is set in read/write, but I see the read-only in the config file.


What do you guys think?

** WARNING ** I have been looking around for help for your problem and found this which advises NOT to install lilo to the MBR of a Proliant DL360 as setup code for the machine is stored there. Be aware of this before reading the following as it may cause you problems. ** WARNING **

I think you may need to change this :
to this :
to install lilo to the MBR. As I said earlier - running this :
should show you this disk's partitions and device name. You want the bit after it reports
at the top line to see what the disk itself is known as. It will probably be as already mentioned. Just change this in /etc/lilo.conf ans as root run: to fix.
** SEE WARNING **

Did the cfdisk worked for you?
How is your disk partitioned now?
Do you have one of the partitions logged as bootable?
When you boot into your root partition - try reconfigure lilo with liloconfig . You get the same procedure as at the end of the installation. When the setup steps are complete you shouldn't get any errors.

As for KDE try startx. But be sure to run kde not as root.

Thanks everyone for your help!
The problem lies with the server itself.
The bios is all software instead of hardware.
After doing a lot of searching/reading, I found out that lilo won't work.
Its all in the way the bios works.
There is a boot limitation of 8 gigs, but that won't matter.
*(I've already tried it on a partition < 8 gigs.)
The HP website said to use Grub.
Most of the HP support is centered on Red Hat, the closest Slack flavor is Suse.
I've downloaded and installed the latest Proliant software/bios drivers.
I've installed and created new partitions with Ubuntu and grub and it now boots normally.
I've saved the root partition for Slack.
I'll set that up next.

Here's what my partitions look like now:
10 Gig /Swap c0d0p1
8 Gig /Root c0d0p2 (old Slack) Reiserfs
8 Gig /Root c0d0p3 (Ubuntu) *Bootable Ext4
133.5 Gig /Home c0d0p5 Ubuntu/Home Ext4 (Logical Partition)
133.5 Gig /Home c0d0p6 Slack/Home *Future Slack Reiserfs (Logical Partition)

I'm a little put out by way the server works. I've alwayed heared that "If you know Slack, then you know Unix".
I wanted to play around with Slack first before messing around with other distros.


Am I correct in thinking that I can re-install Slack and then choose to not install the bootloader, in order to, get Slack to load?
Thanks again for your help!