Debian Sparc installer with raid 1 support

[Richard Marshall]

Hello,
 
I am hoping for a little advice. I am trying to install debian on 2 Sun 
machines, a Netra x1 and an E420r. What I'd like to be able to do is create a 
raid mirror with the disks before the system is installed. i.e. install debain 
onto a mirror, rather than creating the mirror after the install.
 
I have been using some of the latest installers and notice that there is now an 
option within the partitioning menu to create software raid, when I select this 
option I am told that the kernel does not support it. 
 
Is there a Sparc installer out there that has the software raid partitioning 
option, and a kernel that will support it? If there is no installer available 
at present, how long am I likely to have to wait before one appears, and where 
is it likely to turn up?
 
Thanks in advance for any help that can be offered.
 
Regards
 
Richard

Re: Debian Sparc installer with raid 1 support

[James Whatever]

I have been using some of the latest installers and notice that there 
is now an option within the partitioning menu to create software raid, 
when I select this option I am told that the kernel does not support 
it.


I'm using Linux software raid1 on a SparcStation 20 with 2 4.5GB SCA 
disks.  It seems to run fine, except that the machine has to resync the 
root raid with every single boot, and also that SILO bails when booting 
from the scsi disks.


My SILO config is as follows:

partition=1
root=/dev/md0
timeout=100

image=1/vmlinuz
label=linux
read-only

image=1/vmlinuz.old
label=linux.old
read-only

image=1/vmlinuz.rescue
label=rescue
read-only

When I boot it gets as far as SI and then says Program Terminated.  
I'm able to boot the machine by using SILO from the debian CD in a 
somewhat ingenious workaround:


boot cdrom /iommu/sbus/[EMAIL PROTECTED],40/[EMAIL PROTECTED],80/[EMAIL PROTECTED],0;1/vmlinuz 
root=/dev/md0 ro


I'm also having big problems with kernels that can be booted, I tried 
using the debs from http://osinvestor.com/sparc/ but they wont boot at 
all.


Thanks in advance.

---
James Whatever
My niece called me Uncle Robot on the weekend!
Giant Robot Ltd, http://www.giantrobot.co.nz/