[Cooker] aic7xxx_old installation problems

[Alvin Austin]

Hi All,

I'm trying to install the latest cooker onto a SCSI-only machine
(even the CDROM is SCSI). The machine has an adaptec AIC-7895
host adaptor on the motherboard, which *requires* the aic7xxx_old
driver. Unfortunately, this is not an option in expert mode (only
the aic7xxx driver is given as an option). The machine hangs
badly when the aic7xxx driver tries to load.

===
PLEASE add the aic7xxx_old driver to the scsi host adapter list
for expert mode. There are many, many machines out there that
require this older driver.
===

Things go downhill with the other boot disks.
- The hd-2.2.19-BADZ5 and the network-2.2.19-BADZ5 both let you
install Mandrake, but don't install the aic7xxx_old driver
into the initrd.img (the aic7xxx gets installed and then you
can't boot).

- If you try to use the 2.2.19 hd or network images in rescue
mode (to try and run mkinitrd to add the aic7xxx_old driver),
many modules don't load properly, because the /modules/modules.cz
on these images is for the 2.4.* kernels not for 2.2.19. The
worst thing is that the loop module cannot be loaded, which
breaks mkinitrd. The error message is:

# modprobe loop
extracting aes.o
/tmp/aes.o: kernel-module version mismatch
/tmp/aes.o was compiled for kernel version 2.4.21pre4-6mdkBOOT
while this kernel is version 2.2.19-BADZ5.
extracting loop.o
/tmp/loop.o: kernel-module version mismatch
/tmp/loop.o was compiled for kernel version 2.4.21pre4-6mdkBOOT
while this kernel is version 2.2.19-BADZ5.
insmod loop failed at /sbin/modprobe line 35.


I suppose that you could temporarily install an IDE drive into
the machine and then bootstrap your way over to fixing the
Mandrake image, but this is way too hard of a configuration to
support.

===
Please support the aic_7xxx_old driver in both Cooker and
the upcoming 9.1 release.
===

Thanks, and have a great day!

Alvin