Slackware 8.1 - ultra133 TX2 (maxtor) problem
 

Heya guys,

I usually use redhat, but decided to try out slackware 8.1. I am having a problem. My linux drive is on a maxtor (re-packaged promise) ultra133 TX2 card. Slackware does not recognize any drives on this, even though there is supposed to be support for it.

I have never built a kernal yet, so compiling my own kernel is sorta out of the question. Does anyone know what bootdisk kernel I need to run to get my system up and running?? I have checked the bootdisk directory, and do not see my card listed anywhere; Athough I do know that it is supported.

Any help would be great.

The 2.4.18 kernel using the bare.i config file and has the Promise IDE controller chipset enabled. The kernel build lists the following chips as supported:

PD202{46|62|65|67|68}

The 2.4.19 and 2.4.20 kernels have added the additional chipsets PD20269 and PD20270.

I have a Promise Ultra66 PCI adapter and it has the PD20262 chipset and the 2.4.18 kernel supported it very well. I was unable to determine the chip that the Ultra133 TX2 card uses from the Promise website. Your card BIOS might report the chip when it is booting or from a linux system, (I think maybe even the Slack install CD), you can use the "lspci" command to list the PCI devices detected. The adapter might report the chip that is in use. It would appear that the card was introduced about a year ago and that coincides closely with the release of the 2.4.18 kernel.

Once you determine the chip that is in use you could also search here on LQ using the chip number and see if any other threads come up that might provide more information.

I could probably build a kernel for you and post it where you can download if you like. I would think that would also require the 5 root system diskettes as well. If you are able to boot the current Slack ISO CD image, I suppose I could build a small ISOLINUX boot CD with the kernel and the root file system. Then after booting you would just switch CD's out in the drive. Either way, you would have to at least install the newly provided kernel during the install to avoid a kernel panic on reboot though. After booting, you would have to rebuild the kernel and all the modules to have a fully functioning system.

As another alternative, if you look through the Slack forum here or do a search restricted to this forum on "slackware-current". I recall a post recently where there was site that offered the slackware-current as an iso image. The slackware-current tree is based on 2.4.19 kernel. But it is also based on the newer gcc 3.2.1 libs.

Good luck.

I just checked my card. It has the PD20269 chip on it; so I will look for a current slack release and go from there... Thanks!

Cohobin, what did you do now to get it working ?

I'm running slack 8 too.

I need to plug more hdd's in my machine so i bought the Promise Ultra133 TX2

Since there were no drivers to be found on the Promise website
i started looking for them on the web => only thing i found were posts like this one....

So my prospects look like allot a trouble and so far no solution

if there is anybody who can help me .... i would be VERY happy

guc

Although this thread is about a year old now, just compile in the drivers (or load the modules for) the IDE chipset listed in my previous post. that should get you going.

Ultra66 and Slackware 8.1 with 20GB Maxtor
 

I have an older MB (Tekram P6F40K-A5) an a newer Hard Disk that support UDMA 66. I'm using an old Promise Ultra66 PCI card that worked with Windows. I can install Slackware 8.1 (don't really need a newer kernel) on the hardware without a hitch. It seems the bare.i bootdisk recognizes the drive on the PCI card as /dev/hde.

After installation, Slackware won't boot. The Ultra66 BIOS card recognizes the Hard drives, but the Lilo prompt doesn't appear. I have jumped through a bunch of hoops, and read through the HOWTOS, re-compiled the kernel, etc... No Joy. I end up using a boot floppy. :-(

I have made this message brief to prompt knowledgeable questions. Please respond if you are interested.

Thanks!

You may want to check your BIOS for any "anti-virus" or 'protect the MBR" setting. If this is on, it would stop lilo from writing to the MBR. Just my two cents...:twocents:

Hitting nails on heads
 

You may be right. I was fiddling around with the BIOS anti-virus settings when upgrading the RAM a few weeks ago. I'll give that a look-see this evening.

If you are installing lilo to an extended IDE that plugs into a PCI or ISA slot, then you need to recompile the kernel and enable boot external chips first, and also hard-link the driver for your chip.

Otherwise, you'd need to boot with an intrd so the module can be loaded before mounting rootfs.

Or maybe get lilo or GRUB to remap the hard drives.

External Chips first and Hard-Linked drivers
 

Thanks for the response. I re-compiled a kernel last night. I'm pretty sure I chose "boot external chips first". I also selected the kernel option for my particular Promise Ultra66 PCI board, if that is what you mean by "and also hard-link the driver for your chip."

Do you know how to review the kernel parameter chosen _after_ the kernel has been compiled? Is there a utility that can review a kernel and produce a list of options (kind of like "ar" or "ld") used to build the kernel? I would rather not go through the recompile process again just to ensure a bit is flipped.

I just ran 'make menuconfig' and reviewed the current kernel settings (menuconfig requires ncurses). Looks like I did NOT choose to boot external chips first. Just made the choice and am 'make dep'; 'make clean'; 'make bzImage'; 'make modules' right now.

I'll let you know how it turned out.

Bummer. Two problems. 1) I didn't run 'make mrproper', so I'm not sure I had the correct configuration. 2) I got an error "smp_num_cups" undeclared in ksyms.o (or something like that). A Google turned up a problem in my choices. I should have chosen SMP support (even though I don't have two processors). I'm running 'make mrproper' and selecting the correct choices (I hope) and then 'make dep'; 'make clean'; 'make bzImage'; 'make modules'. It takes about an hour to run through all this. :-O

Promise Ultra66 and Recompile Kernel
 

So far so good. The kernel compiled without a hitch. Unfortunately, the computer will not boot the /dev/hde2. So, I have added an old 5GB HDD on the Tekram motherboard's onboard PIO Mode 4 IDE controller and installed DOS 6.22 from floppy on it (three disks!). Now, I have installed LOADLIN on the DOS partition and can boot Linux from it. This really kills two birds with one stone. 1) I can boot my Linux system without a boot floppy 2) I can introduce my sone to the old DOS LucasArts video game "glory days" by running Full Throttle, X-Wing, and Tie Fighter on the DOS partition.

:-)

I may come back to this when the 5 GB drive dies.