Debian Potato 2.2r3 on PS486 with Smart-2
Updated January 06, 2003
Created January 06, 2003

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Debian Potato 2.2r3 i386 on Compaq ProSignia 486 with Compaq SmartArray2
Version 1.0 1.6.2003

Kaj Tuunanen
shinguz@nospam.phreaker.net (remove the nospam to get in contact)


The ProSignia 486 gave me some serious thought before I got all three
that I have to finally boot from the array. With serious googling and
the help of a few friends, I finally managed to get the circus on the
road.

When writing this document, I assumed that you have some knowledge about
configuring the EISA-bus and the RAID. If you do not, find the information
and do the configuration first. You will need the ECU and BIOS diskettes
from the Compaq support website to get your ProSignia to run the way it
was designed to run.

According to Debian, Woody installation disks do not support the NCR 53C710
embedded scsi controller, the installer does not have the sim710
(simple 53C710) support built in. I believe that with a custom kernel on the
installer floppies it should be possible to do a straight Woody install.
All three of my ProSignias are running either Woody or Sarge but the
installations have been either upgrades from Potato or ftp installs. The
kernel source seems to have the sim710 still in it so recompiling should not
be too much of a problem.

Even if the computers are old and slow, you can still even burn cd's on them.
One of my ProSignias is used purely as a cd-burner, mostly to make new linux
cd's that have been downloaded. The burner that I have connected is an
ancient Sony CDU 920 that supports 4x burning, IIRC. The ProSignia can supply
the burner with everything it needs as long as it comes off the array.
Copying cd's is restricted to 1x mostly due to the slow cd that came with
the computer originally. Of course, even the downloading is handled by the
ProSignia.

Remember, if (=when) you compile a new kernel for your ProSignia, you will
have to compile the support for the SmartArray and the NCR 52C710 (sim710)
statically into the kernel, modules will not do if you want the thing to boot
off the array. To get the smart2 to work, you also have to enable PCI support
even if the computer does not have PCI in the first place.

(Other notes on compiling Linux kernels: http://www.cpqlinux.com/kernel.html)

First you have to figure out what kind of RAID configuration you want.
As all three of my ProSignias are just old servers running desktop duty,
I just made one huge disk that I partitioned later into root and swap.
If you want redundancy you will have to use something a bit more fancy.
While I was fooling around with different configurations during the
reinstallations, I tried most of the RAID configurations.
The system that I was using as a testbed booted off anything, even the
1024 cylinder barrier was nonexistent.

For boot disks you will need the "compact" flavor, it has all the necessary
drivers compiled into the kernel.

On your RAID configuration you must select Linux, Unix or Other as your
primary operating system for the array. The choice you make depends on what
is present on the configuration utility, there seems to be some differencies
on what the ECU installation disks actually have.

If you have the original Compaq NetFlex network interface card on your
computer, you will have to replace it with something that Linux supports on
a pure EISA machine. The tlan driver seems to require the presence of a
PCI bus, which obviously is lacking on these things. I use 3com 509
Etherlink III cards configured for EISA mode with the 3com configuration
utility on the very box that I am planning to run them on. 3com also provides
all EISA *.cfg files on their downloadable diskimages.

In case you want to run X on your system, beware that the onboard VGA has
some weird restriction on how many colors it can use. There is enough memory
to run something decent, but the adapter refuses to go past 600x800 at
16 colors. The easiest way around this is to simply disable the onboard VGA
and install an ISA VGA card. I do not have any EISA VGA's floating around,
so I have not been able to test them.

It is also essential to tell Debian the parameters of the NICs installed,
as even if the NICs are recognized during installation, they are not at a
normal boot.

  1. Install the Compaq system partition to get F10 functionality and
    configure your RAID to your liking. I will not describe the EISA
    configuration here as it has been described to death on the net previously.
    While you're working on the EISA, check that your memory gap has been
    disabled as Linux needs a continuous memory map to function.

  2. Upgrade the bios to the latest version from Compaqs website.

  3. Connect a printer to the box and get a prinout of your configuration
    when you're done.

  4. Boot back to the F10, go to operating system installation and select
    either linux, unix or other, depending on what shows on the menu.
    Insert the Debian Compact rescue disk and hit enter.

  5. When you get to the Syslinux bootprompt, you have to type in some
    parameters.

    The correct format is:

    "linux smart2=0x?000 sim710=addr:0x?000,irq:?? mem=???M" where

    smart2=0x?000 the ? is the number of the EISA slot with
    the Smart2, i.e. smart2=0x7000
    sim710=addr:0x?000,irq:?? the first ? is the i/o address,
    i.e. sim710=addr:0x8000,irq:11
    mem=???M the ? is the amount of physical
    RAM on the system

    If you did as I told you to do, you can get all this information from the
    printout that you have.

    (Other notes on memory: http://www.cpqlinux.com/memory.html)

  6. Insert the root floppy when prompted and start the configuration.

  7. Configure keyboard and partition hard drive. Depending on how you
    configured your SmartArray, you will see one or more drives. When
    partitioning the drive, do not touch the system partition, just make at
    least one primary for root and a logical for swap. Format as required.

  8. Install modules and configure them as needed.

  9. Install kernel

  10. Install and configure base system

  11. Give the correct boot parameters for lilo to
    append at boot time. You will use the same parameters you used at the
    initial bootprompt. The only exception is the ethernet parameter to be
    inserted between the sim710 and mem-statements in the form of:

    ether=?,0x?000,eth0 Where the first ? is the irq,
    the second is the i/o address

  12. Make system bootable that is, run lilo. When running lilo, do *not*
    let it install into MBR and you *are* using a bootmanager. Install into
    boot sector of root and *do not* create master boot record or you will lose
    the F10 functionality. With these final steps you let the F10 configuration
    prompt still be there for future needs.

  13. Reboot

  14. The system should now boot off the array and you should be able to
    install and configure the system in a normal manner.

  15. Enjoy your latest Debian installation, remember to brag about the
    fact that you are actually running a hardware raid, not something using the
    cpu to simulate raid.

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