Install Suse 10.1 with FastTrak SX4000 SCSI/RAID
 

This is my very first Linux install, and am stumped at how to begin. I've downloaded the .iso's to burn to disc and now have 5 shiny new Suse 10.1 discs. I put in disc 1 and go through the installation routine all the way up to the point where it tells me that I don't have any discs on the computer.

Fair enough, says I. Micro$oft would have barfed on the SCSI RAID controller as well. So, I go to the Promise website and snag some Linux drivers for my FastTrak SX4000. Easy as pie, right?

Not so much. Now I'm dealing with .tgz files, which is fine. I go find a Windows based unzipper that will handle this. Inside the .tgz file I find a .58 file. (My Windows mind is a little scared.) Lo and behold, the compression program tells me that it found a nested .tar file and asks me if I'd like to uncompress that. I have no idea that I shouldn't, so I tell it to go ahead.

Inside that, I see a .img file and a README.TXT. Well, the readme.txt is completely and totally wrong. I think it was written for an earlier version of Suse.

I've tried to boot and install with drivers (F3 for more options, F5 to install with drivers), but nothing I do will allow Yast to find the drivers for my SCSI controller. I've put the .tgz file on CD and tried to point it. I've put the .58 file on CD and tried to point to that. I've put the .img file on CD and tried to point to that. Nothing.

I read the newbie thread about .tgz's on this site and that looks like good information, IF I have Linux already installed.

Please help. It boils down to, I have no other Linux installs available to me. I have drivers for my SCSI RAID card, but can't get them installed. What am I missing or what can I do to get passed this?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

You know, I never did solve this problem when I was futzing around with SUSE. By "never solved", I mean that at first it didn't find any hard disks, then some days later when I tried again it did. I'm serious. The same install discs, the same method, and one time it just worked. However, with my setup (one hd using promise sata raid, one hd using an ata 150 controller), it couldn't read the ata-connected drive. Using my FastTrak controller never did work.

On Ubuntu, it worked flawlessly. Mandriva worked as well, but I like Ubuntu better.

What I mean by this unhelpful garble, is that I had the same problem with FastTrak, and wish you the best of luck. :)

PS: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=450562

Thanks for the heads up. I really didn't have any specific reason for going Suse, so I suppose I'll grab another distro and try that. Worse case scenario, I'll go get a regular IDE drive and try to install without all the fancy SCSI controllers.