can't install linux!

[gnef]

Hey, guys, my hardware is listed in my sig.

Specifically what i am having problems with is the scsi controller card. It recognizes the chip, qlogic, but can't seem to communicate with the card. The kernel goes through an endless loop trying to reset the bus or something along those lines. It is trying to communicate wtih the card, but just can't. I have tried both debian and mandrake distros. debian 2.2 and mandrake 8.2

the kernel can initialize the onboard and promise ide controller, but just hangs when trying to install the qlogic driver for the iwill controller card. any suggestions? as of now, i have taken out all of the other pci cards and tried with no luck, tried in both the dvd rom and cdrw drive, i have tried increasing and decreasing the pci latency for the scsi controller with no noticeable effects, still hangs at the same spot. Debian doesn't even recognize the card, only mandrake tried to install the drivers with the endless loop.

sorry if this is incoherent, but i'm just a bit frazzled at this point... TIA for any replies.

-Mel

 

[Abzstrak]

sounds like the driver is wrong, dunno what to tell U with those distros... with debian you should be able to insmod whatever driver you want.... with redhat you can so I would assume the same with mandrake. It should be easy with gentoo, if you find the driver.....

I did a quick search for a driver download, but turned up nothing... at any rate, heres a bump to see if someone can help ya

 

[gnef]

Heh, thanks for looking into to it, and thanks for the bump. I will be trying a few different things, and hopefully somehow they will work... heh...

-Mel

 

[Chaotic42]

I know little about SCSI, but my advice to you is to try to get ahold of something newer than Debian 2.2.

Debian is always a bit behind, and 2.2 is pretty old.
Sorry

 

[n0cmonkey]

update bios on the board
Go through an expert install and see if that helps.

Im still looking for the chipset on that particular board, but I know there are drivers (there are linux drivers on the site).

EDIT: Try something with atleast a 2.4.11 kernel. Its a QLA12160 chipset by the way.

 

[gnef]

Yea, i already updated the bios of the card, with no effect on the installation.

it seems that the mandrake 9 beta 2 installed the drivers correctly, and i went through the entire installation procedure, but after the reboot, instigated by mandrak, lilo did not "appear" and it went to my default windows boot loader for w2k and wxp. so i will try it again wtih different settings. although, it did format the remaining space on my scsi hard drive, so i know the driver loaded succesfully. i will do some more tinkering, and sees how it goes. thanks for the suggestions.

-Mel

 

[manly]

The last problem can be diagnosed if you have a boot/rescue disk (many Linux distro install CDs double as a rescue disk). In which case you can boot into a Linux environment where you can fix any LILO problems, and then install a LILO bootloader.

Re-installation is generally not necessary with Linux. You almost certainly learn more if you can fix the problem rather than wiping it out.

 

[gnef]

hm, good idea. it partitioned the free space into three partitions though... one about 2.5, another about 1.5 and a small partition around 243 MB. i was hoping for either just one or two partitions. but perhaps it feels three is necessary... anyways, i will just stick with the three partitions.

-Mel

 

[manly]

The partitioning does sound a bit odd. I assume it's

2.5 GB /
1.5 GB /usr
243 MB swap

Generally speaking, you should have as much swap as physical memory but since you're space constrained, I would consider a slight alternative:

3.2 GB /
800 MB /home
256 MB swap

For desktop PCs, fancy partitioning isn't really necessary but breaking off /home makes it easy to "clean install" down the road without wiping user data. If you don't want that luxury, then yeah 2 partitions (/ and swap) would do.

 

[gnef]

ok. I have it running. I just don't know how to do anything. i can't even access the internet through gozzilla or the other browsers. I think the tcp/ip is setup, it shows dhcp - i have a server as nat - but i don't know any commands to find out what my ip is, nor coul i find a place to find it through the gui, although i only did a cursory view over the settings. it is sort of intuitive, except when something goes wrong... heh... but i am a complete newbie with this, so i guess it will just take time with me playing around with it. thanks for the help. btw, i just left the partition tables as they were, i figure the distro knows better than me how to setup the partitions. heh...

-Mel

 

[n0cmonkey]

"/sbin/ifconfig -a" and look for eth0

"man ifconfig" for more information.

 

[gnef]

Ok. i have played around with the settings to no avail. i just don't know what exactly is wrong. I have a separate nt box i use for dhcp with my dsl, and to my other windows clients, it is working as of now. I am attempting to configure it through the mandrake control center, it recognizes the onboard 3com chip, and can monitor the network traffic to and from the ethernet adapter, but it can't seem to get an ip, or access the internet, if it has an ip. using the ifconfig, it doesn't appear it has an ip, because i think i would have seen it through that report in linux if it had an ip. i am utterly confused as to what to do. ah well... i will just keep trying, i guess. i just need to figure all this stuff out.

-Mel

 

[Abzstrak]

do a "ifconfig eth0" and see if it has an IP, if not try a "dhcpcd -kn" and see if it gets an IP then....

 

[gnef]

Hm, this is odd.

I am in the mandrake control center under the network and internet section and connection part of that.

Now, if the internet access portion says "disconnected" then i can get an ip on my eth0 adapter through ifconfig in a konsole. if it says "connected" then i don't have an ip, and can't access the interent anyways. now, under that portion of the gui, it shows my hardware, with different columns describing it. one is "ip address" of which there is nothing below it...

In fact, sometimes, when i do "ifconfig" it doesn't even see or recognize the "eth0" adapter, and i only see a "LO" adapter which i don't know exactly what it is... but apparently it has ip address 127.0.0.1 or something like that, i am not entirely positive.

Although, i do feel this is a step better than what i was before, yet i still can't get on teh internet on that machine.

and one thing, when i "configure" the 3com through the "wizard" it asks for a hostname. i am not sure if i am supposed to put my server's ip address, put the name of my computer, or put the domain name, or the name of my computer with a period then the domain name? Also, i haven't told the linux machine a "name" for it yet, like in windows, is that the hostname?

-Mel

 

[GigaCluster]

Does your DSL require a PPPoE connection?

If not, you can contact me via a PM or at Cluster@jabber.org (not an e-mail address!) on the Jabber protocol, and I can look at your machine in more detail.

 

[gnef]

Yes, my dsl is ppp over ethernet.

i use nt 4.0 terminal server on a pentium 200 mmx. for dhcp i use sygate internet sharing connection program.

although, the more i look at it, i think that linux is using the wrong module for my integrated ethernet port. it is using a 3c59x module, i believe, and my controller is a 3c905. that could be causing all my problems. i hope at least... hopefully i will be able to find a module. although, i don't know how to configure/add modules... man, i am such a newbie with this stuff.

-Mel

 

[Abzstrak]

yes, for a 3com 905 the 3c59x module is the correct one... what happens when you modprobe the module?

 

[Nothinman]

3c59x is the correct module for the 3c905 cards. If it's not getting a DHCP address I would check the obvious, like cabling, first.

 

[gnef]

The cabling is OK. Since i am triple booting the machine, i am actually using windows 2000 right now to type from on the same machine, and the interent is working ok.

Good, so the module is the correct one then. i will attempt the modprobe, though i don't know the parameters, i will just play around with it a bit, i guess.

i am also intermittently getting an ip, but that's only when the mandrake control center --> network and internet --> connection shows "disconnected" when it shows "connected" i do not see an ip address assigned to the nic, and it will oscillate between connected and disconnected while i watch it... this is so strange to me... heh... ah well...

-Mel

 

[Abzstrak]

gui tools are problematic at best.... use the cli.... ESPECIALLY since its a beta of mandrake of all things....


also, do you know if the kernel includes acpi support? maybe there is a irq or other issue between the nic and another card.... without acpi it'll depend on which slots your cards are in and what chipset your using on which cards share resources.... if this turns out to be the case then rearranging your cards may alleviate the issue, and also may explain the scsi detection problem.

 

[gnef]

Hm, the nic is onboard, and moving around the cards can only be very minimal, considering the 64 bit/66mhz cards can only fit in those slots...

i do have acpi enabled, and i will not turn it off, if i wanted mps in windows, i would have installed mps...

i am assuming cli refers to the command line interface?

i am using the command line a bit, but only to see where things are at.

Like i said, i am a complete newbie with linux, and really don't know many of the advanced commands, how to pipe properly, how to configure using commands, which commands to use to configure, etc.

actually, what would be a good book to assist in learning linux? i went to barnes and nobles today, and perused a lot of the books, but most were either quite advanced for me, or didn't apply entirely to what i needed to know.

-Mel

 

[Abzstrak]

actually I didn't mean acpi in the bios, I meant in your kernel.... AFAIK most distros do not use the acpi options be default.... Mandrake may be different, been a long time since I've seen a mandrake box.... I would agree that you should not disable acpi in the bios when dual booting....

Anyhow, if the nic is onboard then moving is no option... I would suggest changing the acpi option in the kernel (enable or disable, whatever it isn't now) and see if it helps....

to do this you'll need to recompile your kernel, the source should be at /usr/src/linux . First run a "make menuconfig" and only enable the acpi option if you dont know anything else. To do this first you'll need to su in as root. Then under code maturity level options enable the prompt for development and incomplete blah blah thingy..... Then under general setup you'll find the ACPI options, enable the acpi support and all its sub-parts as modular. then exit, and save... then do a "make dep && make clean bzImage modules modules_install"

Then copy the /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage file to /boot as something like bzImage_acpi. You'll need to add your new kernel to grub or lilo or whatever your using. This can get different depending on your partitions... I dont remember lilo off the top of my head, grub should look something like this:

(file is /boot/grub/menu.lst)

default 0
timeout 10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=normal
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda3

title=new kernel
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/bzImage_acpi root=/dev/hda3


anyways, hopefully this makes sense, I gotta run
good luck

 

[gnef]

oh wow. that was entirely over my head.

I just started with linux, and am not even fathoming recompiling the kernel at this point in my education of linux... could you point me to a link to describe a bit more in depth what you just said. i know it was very concise, and if i followed it exactly, then i would be ok, hopefully, but i would just like to learn it myself. Also, i use lilo, so if i mess up the boot loader... i am in a world of trouble.

thanks for the informative post... but i am not sure if i am ready to do that quite yet, and do you really think this will impact my situation with the nic? i mean the module is loading and everything, it's just messed up somehow, somewhere, and i dont' know where.

-Mel