Linux-Hardware Digest #819, Volume #10 Thu, 22 Jul 99 07:13:26 EDT
Contents:
Re: muti-monitor support (Bryan)
building efficient fileserver on Linux - hardware questions (Bartlomiej Jarocki)
Re: muti-monitor support (Bryan)
Re: RAID controler? (Bryan)
Re: what machine to run linux? (Harald Arnesen)
Re: SoundBlaster PCI128 (Harald Arnesen)
Fujitsu MO ATAPI (Gerber van der Graaf)
Emulation ("Jake_Paws")
ThinkPad 570 with UltraBase ("Stephen Benson")
Re: missing RAM ("Jürgen Pfann")
Re: Cases with Speed Display (gus)
Re: what machine to run linux? (gus)
HP Laserjet 3100 and Linux ("Michael Gibson")
Re: building efficient fileserver on Linux - hardware questions (gus)
HP Laserjet 3100 and Linux ("Michael Gibson")
Re: muti-monitor support ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Controller eth0 is down (RedHat6.0) (Achille Valisolalao)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bryan <Bryan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: muti-monitor support
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 08:30:44 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: Bryan <Bryan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
: > : You can do: Use xinit --display :0 / xinit --display :1 (or such, see
: > : man page) to get tow independent X displays.
: > : You can't do (yet): combine those to form a single desktop.
: >
: > of course you can. just not with xfree86. metro-x and Xig both
: > support multiple screens.
: > I use 2 matrox cards at home and at work with dual displays. its
: > great ;-)
: Would that also work if the displays are at different hosts (assuming
: you're allowed to connect to both servers)?
no - each host is its own 'server'. there is a notion of -server-
(which IP device the X server runs on) and -screen- (the physical crt
that is connected to a video system on a single host).
multi-head (in the x11 standard) refers to having multiple screens on
a single server.
--
Bryan, http://www.Grateful.Net - Linux/Web-based Network Management
->->-> to email me, you must hunt the WUMPUS and kill it.
------------------------------
From: Bartlomiej Jarocki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: building efficient fileserver on Linux - hardware questions
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 09:45:21 +0200
I got a fund to build efficiecient fileserver and application server on
Linux (FastEthernet, aprox. 20 Win9x SMB clients and 5 netbooted
X-workstations, with NFS-root) and I would like to ask for your kind
advice on following questions:
1. What sort of disk interface will be most efficient UDMA or SCSI U/W?
2. Is dual processor board worth its price - does it give a noticeable
system load advantage?
3. What other parameters will strongly affect system efficiency like
certain memory types, network interface card etc.?
I will appreciate any even partly advice.
Regards
Bartek
--
_______________________________________________________________________
Bartlomiej Jarocki * Instytut Techniki i Aparatury Medycznej
* Medical Technology & Equipment Institute
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * ul.Roosevelta 118, 41-800 Zabrze, Poland.
ICQ#7152561 * tel/fax:(+48 32) 2716013 +21
------------------------------
From: Bryan <Bryan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: muti-monitor support
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 08:32:11 GMT
Marc Mutz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Bryan wrote:
: >
: <snip>
: > : You can't do (yet): combine those to form a single desktop.
: >
: > of course you can. just not with xfree86. metro-x and Xig both support
: > multiple screens.
: >
: I never recommend _commercial_ applications for Linux. A free OS should
: run free SW, IMO.
agreed in principle, but when you need a tool and its only in
commercial sw, then I'll do that if need be.
--
Bryan, http://www.Grateful.Net - Linux/Web-based Network Management
->->-> to email me, you must hunt the WUMPUS and kill it.
------------------------------
From: Bryan <Bryan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: RAID controler?
Crossposted-To: linux.redhat.install,linux.redhat.misc
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 08:34:06 GMT
In comp.os.linux.hardware Mike Simos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Greg Leblanc wrote:
: > RAID 1 shouldn't have any performance benefits over a RAID 5 on a three
: > disk config, since it's just mirroring data, unless I'm wrong. However,
: > the main thing that I need is data redundancy, and hot swap capability.
: > The LC3 only has three internal hot swap drive bays, and purchasing an
: > external chassis is very expensive. I was really more interested in
: > finding out the best controlers to use with Linux, and any expierence
: > that people have had with them, and saving debates about which RAID
: > configuration is best for another thread. :-) Thanks,
: A good place to start is
: www.redhat.com/corp/support/hardware/intel/60/rh6.0-hcl-i.ld-6.html#ss6.6
: If you plan on using RedHat to make life easy I would suggest purchasing
: one of the RAID controllers on the HCL. I've had good experiences with
: AMI MEGARAID controllers. VA Linux uses Mylex RAID controllers, they
: seem work well. I haven't used any Mylex controllers yet, so I can't
: speak from experience. I would probably stay away from Compaq or IBM's
: RAID controller, but thats my own personal bias. :) DPT (www.dpt.com)
: also has a RAID controller for Linux, never tried it but from the looks
: of their web site it should work okay. As for performance I think the
: Mylex controllers are probably faster
the dac960 is a very old controller, relatively speaking. I have a
dac960pg at home and its not ultra fast. but its reliable and that's
what I wanted from raid (raid-1 is what I run).
, or thats what the DAC960-HOWTO
: leads you to believe. I like the AMI MEGARAID controllers because they
: are pretty easy to configure and there is a ncurses utility that allows
: you to configure your RAID array under Linux.
: Mike
--
Bryan, http://www.Grateful.Net - Linux/Web-based Network Management
->->-> to email me, you must hunt the WUMPUS and kill it.
------------------------------
From: Harald Arnesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: what machine to run linux?
Date: 22 Jul 1999 09:02:09 +0200
Reply-To: Harald Arnesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> I am thinking installing linux to my PC, is that a good idea? Or it is
> better to have a separate system for it, since the machines are so
> cheap these days? And does anyone know how fast the machine has to be
> to run linux? Can it be run in a MAC too?
If you have room on your HD for Linux, and you don't mind rebooting,
then you can use your present machine for both Linux and whatever you
run now.
The absolute minimum for a Linux machine without X is a 386SX with 4MB
RAM. You wouldn't want to use such a machine, though. The practical
minimum for a machine with X is a 486DX4 and 16MB RAM. Any Pentium
with 32 MB will do very nicely. RAM is much more important than
processor speed. You can fit Linux with X in about 200MB, but I would
recommend at least a 1GB drive for the OS and applications.
Yes, you can run it on some Macs. I have never tried.
--
Harald Arnesen, Apalløkkveien 23 A, N-0956 Oslo, Norway
------------------------------
From: Harald Arnesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: SoundBlaster PCI128
Date: 22 Jul 1999 09:09:47 +0200
Reply-To: Harald Arnesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Peter Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > BTW, how is this card? I'm thinking of getting a new soundcard for
> > Linux use. Does it use the ES1370/1371 chip or something newer?
>
> ES1371. It is a reasonable card for the price. It has four speaker
> outs which is good, and on some cards one of the line outs can be
> converted to a line in, giving two. There is quite a bit
> of unwanted noise, as it is not well protected from the inards of
> a computer (in my experience.) It also only has software midi,
> which in general (IMHO) is bad. If you have a fast processor
> (>200mhz) you _probably_ won't notice this. If you do a lot
> of midi work, don't get it, as it will not be perfect.
> (My recomendation, try and find an ensoniq soundscape instead.)
Some of them (e.g. mine) use an ES1370. I can't hear much unwanted
noise from it, and the sound quality is pretty good, if not
outstanding. A pity it doesn't have HW MIDI.
--
Harald Arnesen, Apalløkkveien 23 A, N-0956 Oslo, Norway
------------------------------
From: Gerber van der Graaf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Fujitsu MO ATAPI
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 09:30:22 +0000
I tried to use SCSI emulation for using my Fujitsu MO ATAPI
drive. This is not completely successfull, though. During booting I
get the message:
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
scsi : 1 host.
Vendor: FUJITSU Model: M25-MCC3064AP Rev: 0016
Type: Optical Device ANSI SCSI revision: 00
Detected scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
scsi : detected 1 SCSI disk total.
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 446325 [217 MB] [0.2 GB]
sda: test WP failed, assume Write Protected
Partition check:
sda:SCSI disk error : host 0 channel 0 id 0 lun 0 return code = 28000000
extra data not valid Current error sd08:00: sense key Illegal Request
Additional sense indicates Invalid command operation code
scsidisk I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
unable to read partition table
Thus it seems the device has been recognized correctly, but the disk
is read only! Of course I checked the switch on the disk if it was
closed. Trying to format with mke2fs /dev/sda gives:
mke2fs 1.04, 16-May-96 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
/dev/sda is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
/sbin/mke2fs: while trying to determine filesystem size
*********************
Trying to mount gives:
mount: block device /dev/sda is write-protected, mounting read-only
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda,
or too many mounted file systems
My questions are:
Did the SCSI version of this drive give the same problem? And if so,
could it be solved?
Thanks, Gerber van der Graaf
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Jake_Paws" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Emulation
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 00:50:30 -0600
I know this is crazy and you have already tried it. But check to see if your
3100 can emulate anything else. For instance a HP laserjet series II. Call
hp. depending on the tech support person. They will either be happy to
answer you or just be extremly rude.
------------------------------
From: "Stephen Benson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ThinkPad 570 with UltraBase
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 10:08:03 +0100
I'm thinking of getting one of these to dual boot NT/Linux -- any gotchas I
should know about?
--
Stephen Benson
phone: +44 (0)958 533 599
mobile email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Jürgen Pfann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: missing RAM
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 11:18:03 +0200
Hello !
I basically agree to the other posters before, concerning the "mem=.."
kernel command / LILO append line. But in addition to that, I'd
recommend to inspect your MoBo's system BIOS setup. For the Award
BIOSes, for instance, there are options like "memory hole at 15-16M"-
that should be disabled, or "OS support for mem >64M", that should be
put to "Non-OS/2", obviously :-),both of which in "Advanced BIOS setup".
Especially with the latter set to "OS/2", I can easily reproduce your
problem ;-). Back in the old days when I actually ran OS/2 Warp 3 as
well, I had no other means than to readjust that setting each time when
switching between OS/2 and linux (or several M$ systems as well).
HTH
Juergen
Anthony Ewell wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have an MSI ms-6120 without scsi motherboard with 128 Meg
> of ECC-SDRAM (one stick).
>
> My hard drive is constantly singing and the computer is
> MIND NUMBINGLY SLOW. It also has a dual boot to nt server and
> nt is very fast and very stable (go figure).
>
> /proc/meminfo give me the following:
>
> cat meminfo
>
> total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
> Mem: 14786560 13750272 1036288 3780608 864256 7430144
> Swap: 123342848 10661888 112680960
> MemTotal: 14440 kB
> MemFree: 1012 kB
> MemShared: 3692 kB
> Buffers: 844 kB
> Cached: 7256 kB
> SwapTotal: 120452 kB
> SwapFree: 110040 kB
>
> The cache is the correct size (~120 MB). What is with the 14440 kB?
> That
> would explain my hard drive singing! Where did the rest of the
> 110,000 KB go to?
>
> Anyone have any ideas?
>
> Many thanks,
> --Tony
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: gus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Cases with Speed Display
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 10:40:30 +0100
[snip]
> >
> >Uuuummmmm, you do know what those "speed displays" are, don't you?
> >
> >I have used a couple of cases with one of these displays. It is wired in
> >to the "Turbo LED". There are a couple of banks of jumpers to set the
> >display. One setting for the TurboON and one for the TurboOFF.
> >
> >So, all it does is put numbers to the turbo switch. My favourite was
> >jumpering the display so that it showed On or OFF.
>
> Got another one for you... a friend and I used to have a toy
> webserver, which we creatively named "thebox". The turbo control
> wasn't even hooked up to the motherboard, but we jumpered the LED
> display to read "69" (when the switch was in the off position) and
> "ILL" (when the switch was on).
>
[snipped]
> --Russell
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> email (spam-disabled):
> lord *underscore* equinox *at* mindspring *dot* com
On one of the cases we had had a SCSI card, and I hooked up the LED
"speed" display array to the Activity LED pins, It read something like:
---
| |
---
when the card was active,
and
---
when inactive.
It lasted about a week. I think the constant switching caused it to die.
It started with some of the LED segments failing, then there was nothing
... ;-)
Anyway, I have heard of people connecting the speaker over the HD LED.
Why, IDK.
gus
------------------------------
From: gus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: what machine to run linux?
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 10:43:33 +0100
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> I am thinking installing linux to my PC, is that a good idea? Or it is
> better to have a separate system for it, since the machines are so
> cheap these days? And does anyone know how fast the machine has to be
> to run linux? Can it be run in a MAC too?
>
> Thanks,
> Dan
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
If you can spare another machine, then use it. It is a blessing having
two. Networking and other useful things become possible.
Yes, Linux runs on Mac, but you will need a different distribution than
the standard PC distributions. (The binaries are different, although
they are compatible).
gus
------------------------------
Reply-To: "Michael Gibson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Michael Gibson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: HP Laserjet 3100 and Linux
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 09:55:00 GMT
How can I get my HP Laserjet 3100 to work under Linux??
Any help welcome.
Michael
------------------------------
From: gus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: building efficient fileserver on Linux - hardware questions
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 10:57:41 +0100
See inline ...
Bartlomiej Jarocki wrote:
>
> I got a fund to build efficiecient fileserver and application server on
> Linux (FastEthernet, aprox. 20 Win9x SMB clients and 5 netbooted
> X-workstations, with NFS-root) and I would like to ask for your kind
> advice on following questions:
>
> 1. What sort of disk interface will be most efficient UDMA or SCSI U/W?
>
U/W SCSI definately. It is easier to add capacity, has better redundancy
features, and provides better performance in multi-disk situations. Look
in to software RAIS on Linux, and investigate mechanisms to keep your
data secure.
UDMA is OK for one or maybe two disks. It is cheaper than SCSI, but my
experience is that you get what you pay for.
> 2. Is dual processor board worth its price - does it give a noticeable
> system load advantage?
>
In a File server, the CPU plays little toward performance. It is almost
entirely the bus, disk subsystem, network interface, and available
memory. Use a single processor, and do not go for the fastest, latest,
and greatest, it willbe overkill. For the system you describe, even a
233mhz will be more than enought ;-). Use the money you save to buy
memory! Gigs of it.
> 3. What other parameters will strongly affect system efficiency like
> certain memory types, network interface card etc.?
>
Most high spec interface cards will be fine. Since I usually buy by
brand name, I buy Intel EtherExpress, and 3Com cards. Have a look in to
tuning the network and TCP-IP systems. Read some of the HOWTO's, and
trawl through some of the shrapnel from the incident with MindCraft.
There were some real gems for tuning a high performance interface in
there.
Remember, with SCSI (and UDMA), many smaller disks are better than a few
bigger disks.
Again, be shy of the graphics system (don't get a 19" monitor ;-), don't
get the G400 matrox, and don't get multi processor, or Xeon, or PIII550.
These will idle under your highest loads. The bottleneck is your disk
interface, and your network interface. These are relatively fixed
limits. Additional memory will improve the responsiveness of the disk
subsystem (with cacheing), but the networks is a bit of a concern, as it
would be with any setup.
all the best
gus
> I will appreciate any even partly advice.
>
> Regards
>
> Bartek
>
> --
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Bartlomiej Jarocki * Instytut Techniki i Aparatury Medycznej
> * Medical Technology & Equipment Institute
> mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * ul.Roosevelta 118, 41-800 Zabrze, Poland.
> ICQ#7152561 * tel/fax:(+48 32) 2716013 +21
------------------------------
Reply-To: "Michael Gibson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Michael Gibson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: HP Laserjet 3100 and Linux
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 09:57:21 GMT
How can I get my HP Laserjet 3100 to work under Linux??
Any help welcome.
Michael
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: muti-monitor support
Date: 22 Jul 1999 12:22:31 +0200
Bryan <Bryan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> : > of course you can. just not with xfree86. metro-x and Xig both
> : > support multiple screens.
>
> : > I use 2 matrox cards at home and at work with dual displays. its
> : > great ;-)
>
> : Would that also work if the displays are at different hosts (assuming
> : you're allowed to connect to both servers)?
>
> no - each host is its own 'server'. there is a notion of -server-
> (which IP device the X server runs on) and -screen- (the physical crt
> that is connected to a video system on a single host).
>
> multi-head (in the x11 standard) refers to having multiple screens on
> a single server.
Well I missunderstood the posting. I didn't notice you're talking
about xservers. What I was wondering is if there was a window manager
that could handle multiple displays and perhaps multiple servers (if
that at all is possible).
/Lars
------------------------------
From: Achille Valisolalao <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.networking
Subject: Controller eth0 is down (RedHat6.0)
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 12:09:37 +0200
Hello,
Interface eth0 cannot start on my machine which uses AMD 79C970 Ethernet
controller, because this controller is implemented on the same board as
the SCSI controller, so that the two devices share the same IRQ number.
Does someone know if there is a later release of the Linux kernel which
supports this paticularity and where I can find it ? The current version
of my RedHat 6.0 kernel is 2.2.5.
Than you very much,
Achille Valisolalao
------------------------------
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