[KLUG Members] Re: Install issues -- eliminate the OEM Adaptec card as a problem

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Tue, 2002-06-04 at 15:28, Adam Bultman wrote:
> Okay:
> Here's my new box:
> ASUS P2B-D w/dual 400's
> Adaptec aic7xxx SCSI host controller
> Plextor 12/20 SCSI CDROM
> Compaq 10k RPM Ultra160 drive (Device 0)
> Matrox Millennium Video Card
> 256 MB RAM
> Connor 8 GB Tape drive (travan)
> Optional: Ultra2 Barracuda
> Here's my problem: I can't get any distro of linux to go on it.  I did at
> one point, but I can't anymore.  I've only tried redhat and slackware (7.2
> and 8.0, respectively) yet and I'm wondering why. Slackware complains
> about Trying to kill the idle process, RH just pukes.  I'm tring to find
> out what my problem is.  I suspect the SCSI drive, although I had the SCSI
> working earlier on another controller (and I haven't yet tried the other
> controller, the Adaptec is on-board).

Adaptec still does not officially support Linux.  I've heard this
directly from one of the managers out at the local Orlando Adaptec
support center.  There are endless OEM variants of Adaptec products that
are not well supported by various Adaptec drivers.

With that said, the on-board Adaptec is the AIC-7890 Ultra80 (aka
Ultra2) chipset.  Again, there are endless OEM variants of Adaptec
products.  I would first try to eliminate that as your problem.

> Anyone had this before? I'm looking around for my debian (sigh) CD, and I
> can't find it, so I can't try that. However, those two distros are pretty
> much my favorites, so I'd like to go with one of them.  I'm going to try
> different RAM in a jiffy here, but I'm wondering if someone has an idea
> for me, or had this before.

8 years of trying using Adaptec products with Linux has taught me one
thing, don't.  They are a retail-focused company that does not release
technical specifications, and purposely creates endless variants of
their products for OEMs with incompatible firmware.  I've had to rip out
various Adaptec products over the years in my Linux systems because of
this.

It is best to stick with an OEM-focused vendor for SCSI products that
openly releases information.  Symbios Logic has several Ultra80 and
Ultra160 solutions.  TekRam sells them in their DC-390U2 and DC-390U3
series.  I highly recommend those products for Linux, which start about
around $125.

There are a few retail-focus companies, like Advansys, that do a good
job -- but they always market their products as Linux compatible from
the get-go.  Advansys has support Linux with full GPL drivers since
1994, the first company to do so.  But Advansys never produced anything
faster than an UltraWide card.  But if you just want to verify it is NOT
the disk, and it is the controller, consider going down to CompUSA
(assuming they have a good return policy) and picking up this
Advansys-powered UltraWide card for $69: 
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=278120

That little box at CompUSA has saved me after several Linux installs --
when no matter what kernel nor aic-7xxx driver I threw at it, I couldn't
get them to work.

-- Bryan

-- 
The US government could be 100x more effective, and 1/100th the
Constitutional worry, if it dictated its policy to Microsoft as
THE MAJOR CUSTOMER it is, and not THE REGULATOR it fails to be.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, SmithConcepts, Inc.   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
Engineers and IT Professionals     http://www.SmithConcepts.com