Re: [expert] upgrade woes
I will start this reply with the following sweeping statement: If you buy hardware that's so new that kernel support is only just appearing, then you should expect some things not to work to full potential in a distro that's now 4 months old (and counting). You obviously are very experienced with Linux in general, so I don't intend this to be condescending, but it's good dialogue for others who might want to provide perspective. Darren King wrote on Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 09:42:45AM +1000 : I just upgraded my machine from a k6-2 400 with a super 7 board to a ahtlon 1700xp with a kt333 board and now my system is mucho unstable. Familiar with that one. Go look in /proc/ide/via and make sure that it's getting the full transfer rate on your drives. If not, the answer will probably be in /proc/ide/hda/settings. Look at the following edited output: [root@fiji /home/todd/RPM/SPECS]# cat /proc/ide/hda/settings name value min maxmode - --- --- ide_scsi 0 0 1 rw io_32bit 1 0 3 rw pio_mode write-only 0 255w slow 0 0 1 rw using_dma 1 0 1 rw The absolute most important one in is the last line. If you have using_dma showing up as zero, that means that the kernel doesn't recognize your IDE Chipset as an IDE chipset that's capable of doing UDMA modes, so it just treats it like regular IDE. Another way to tell this is using hdparm -t /dev/hda (use whatever device letter is required for your system). The only solution is to get a newer kernel. In Mandrake, your only real option is to install a Cooker kernel. It's gotten to the point where I am very frustrated with Mandrake and even wondering about how good Linux really is. After years (I started before the kernel was up to 1.0) of supporting Linux, I have watched windows become easier to use and more stable. Windows XP installs new drivers for me without even asking me for anything. It just works. But I love the power of Linux and the applications. Here's the list of my problems. 1. When I shutdown, it goes through the normal routine and then tells me to power the machine down. Before the upgrade, it would power down the machine for menow I have manually use the power button. Try a Cooker kernel. Get it from the Cooker mirrors. 2. No sound. I am still working on this one. sndconfig is useless. It finds my sound card and then tries to play a sound. It cant so it just hangs there and I never get to actually configure the sound card to fix the problem. That's pretty pathetic for a real osthe config tool wont config! Try a Cooker kernel. Get it from the Cooker mirrors. The sound configuration utilties in 8.2 are 4 months old now, so you'll have to configure it by hand. Try both OSS and ALSA. 3. CD burning on my scsi plextor is now very unstable. I have to burn at 1x or the burn fails. The burner is the only device in the scsi chain. The scsi card is sharing an IRQ with 2 ethernet cards and the sound card but of source I cant configure the sound card (see above) to change the IRQ. Install the updates that are on the update mirrors. The version of cdrecord that shipped with 8.2 had a problem that is fixed in the updates. These are not the problems users should put up with from a real operating system. This is mickey mouse stuff. Like I said before, I run windows XP on my other system...I add new hardware, it configures it for me, no problem. I don't mind configuring hardware myself but as you can see above, I would if I could. I do agree that it just works applies in many cases with Windows. If we could get those same manufacturers to either write their own open source support for their products just like the windows drivers they do write OR provide the specs to the hardware and let the community write the drivers. Usually it has to be reverse engineered. In conclusion, I think the lesson learned here is: When upgrading major hardware components such as motherboards, REINSTALL the operating system. It's sad but at least with Mandrake 8.2, it's true. And are you claiming this is not true for Windows? It is, so why are you listing that as a detraction for Linux and not for Windows? Second, you do not need to reinstall the OS, you need only rerun your configuration programs. I can't login because I have a different graphic card is not wholly accurate. Use lilo to boot to runlevel 3 or runlevel 1 and run your configuration utilities (or use failsafe). Blue skies... Todd -- Todd Lyons -- MandrakeSoft, Inc. http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also
Re: [expert] upgrade woes
Thanks for the reply Todd. Is the cooker kernel going to break anything
else in my system? Will all my apps and stuff work? I have always been
wary of running a cooker kernel. Can you shed any light here?
Darren
On Thu, 2002-07-11 at 10:06, Todd Lyons wrote:
I will start this reply with the following sweeping statement:
If you buy hardware that's so new that kernel support is only just
appearing, then you should expect some things not to work to full
potential in a distro that's now 4 months old (and counting).
You obviously are very experienced with Linux in general, so I don't
intend this to be condescending, but it's good dialogue for others who
might want to provide perspective.
Darren King wrote on Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 09:42:45AM +1000 :
I just upgraded my machine from a k6-2 400 with a super 7 board to a
ahtlon 1700xp with a kt333 board and now my system is mucho unstable.
Familiar with that one. Go look in /proc/ide/via and make sure that
it's getting the full transfer rate on your drives. If not, the answer
will probably be in /proc/ide/hda/settings. Look at the following
edited output:
[root@fiji /home/todd/RPM/SPECS]# cat /proc/ide/hda/settings
name value min maxmode
- --- ---
ide_scsi 0 0 1 rw
io_32bit 1 0 3 rw
pio_mode write-only 0 255w
slow 0 0 1 rw
using_dma 1 0 1 rw
The absolute most important one in is the last line. If you have
using_dma showing up as zero, that means that the kernel doesn't
recognize your IDE Chipset as an IDE chipset that's capable of doing
UDMA modes, so it just treats it like regular IDE. Another way to tell
this is using hdparm -t /dev/hda (use whatever device letter is required
for your system). The only solution is to get a newer kernel. In
Mandrake, your only real option is to install a Cooker kernel.
It's gotten to the point where I am very frustrated with Mandrake and
even wondering about how good Linux really is. After years (I started
before the kernel was up to 1.0) of supporting Linux, I have watched
windows become easier to use and more stable. Windows XP installs new
drivers for me without even asking me for anything. It just works. But
I love the power of Linux and the applications.
Here's the list of my problems.
1. When I shutdown, it goes through the normal routine and then tells me
to power the machine down. Before the upgrade, it would power down the
machine for menow I have manually use the power button.
Try a Cooker kernel. Get it from the Cooker mirrors.
2. No sound. I am still working on this one. sndconfig is useless. It
finds my sound card and then tries to play a sound. It cant so it just
hangs there and I never get to actually configure the sound card to fix
the problem. That's pretty pathetic for a real osthe config tool
wont config!
Try a Cooker kernel. Get it from the Cooker mirrors. The sound
configuration utilties in 8.2 are 4 months old now, so you'll have to
configure it by hand. Try both OSS and ALSA.
3. CD burning on my scsi plextor is now very unstable. I have to burn
at 1x or the burn fails. The burner is the only device in the scsi
chain. The scsi card is sharing an IRQ with 2 ethernet cards and the
sound card but of source I cant configure the sound card (see above) to
change the IRQ.
Install the updates that are on the update mirrors. The version of
cdrecord that shipped with 8.2 had a problem that is fixed in the
updates.
These are not the problems users should put up with from a real
operating system. This is mickey mouse stuff. Like I said before, I
run windows XP on my other system...I add new hardware, it configures it
for me, no problem. I don't mind configuring hardware myself but as you
can see above, I would if I could.
I do agree that it just works applies in many cases with Windows. If
we could get those same manufacturers to either write their own open
source support for their products just like the windows drivers they do
write OR provide the specs to the hardware and let the community write
the drivers. Usually it has to be reverse engineered.
In conclusion, I think the lesson learned here is:
When upgrading major hardware components such as motherboards, REINSTALL
the operating system. It's sad but at least with Mandrake 8.2, it's
true.
And are you claiming this is not true for Windows? It is, so why are
you listing that as a detraction for Linux and not for Windows?
Second, you do not need to reinstall the OS, you need only rerun your
configuration programs. I can't
Re: [expert] upgrade woes
Darren King wrote on Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 10:35:03AM +1000 : Thanks for the reply Todd. Is the cooker kernel going to break anything else in my system? Will all my apps and stuff work? I have always been wary of running a cooker kernel. Can you shed any light here? If there's anything going to break, it will be experimental features that have been added to the kernel recently. The one thing that I'm most curious about (sounds like I should be on the Simpsons) is that of the current supermount status. Let me know how things work for you. BTW, does the current kernel see dma capability in your IDE chipset? Blue skies... Todd -- Todd Lyons -- MandrakeSoft, Inc. http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn Cooker Version mandrake-release-8.3-0.2mdk Kernel 2.4.18-21mdk msg56188/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [expert] upgrade woes
Nopethat's currently at 0. Wierd. Looking through the dmesg output, I see that the kernel has flagged my chipset as KT133, not KT333 as it should be. I should be able to install the new cooker kernel separately right? so I can choose what kernel I want to boot? Darren On Thu, 2002-07-11 at 10:40, Todd Lyons wrote: Darren King wrote on Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 10:35:03AM +1000 : Thanks for the reply Todd. Is the cooker kernel going to break anything else in my system? Will all my apps and stuff work? I have always been wary of running a cooker kernel. Can you shed any light here? If there's anything going to break, it will be experimental features that have been added to the kernel recently. The one thing that I'm most curious about (sounds like I should be on the Simpsons) is that of the current supermount status. Let me know how things work for you. BTW, does the current kernel see dma capability in your IDE chipset? Blue skies... Todd -- Todd Lyons -- MandrakeSoft, Inc. http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn Cooker Version mandrake-release-8.3-0.2mdk Kernel 2.4.18-21mdk Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] upgrade woes
Darren King wrote on Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 11:33:48AM +1000 : Nopethat's currently at 0. Wierd. Looking through the dmesg output, I see that the kernel has flagged my chipset as KT133, not KT333 as it should be. No DMA = slow slow slow. Will feel very unresponsive under high disk I/O. Will result in horrible system performance and high load averages (because the kernel is waiting on the hardware to say I'm finished writing all that data that you gave to me). I should be able to install the new cooker kernel separately right? so I can choose what kernel I want to boot? Yes. Install it, *NOT* upgrade it. But: (there's always a but) soapbox The kernel should be the only package you try this with. In other words, don't download the latest Mozilla or Samba package from Cooker and expect it to work. It won't. Cooker is using a different version of gcc which results in different libstdc++ libs which means none of your graphical apps will work. Some of the text based ones *might*, but I'm telling you and everybody else now: Don't do it. You're creating so much heartache for yourself that it defies explanation why we, even as sadistic as we are, would do such a thing. /soapbox Blue skies... Todd -- Todd Lyons -- MandrakeSoft, Inc. http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn Cooker Version mandrake-release-8.3-0.2mdk Kernel 2.4.18-21mdk msg56195/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [expert] upgrade woes
- Original Message - From: Darren King [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: mandrake list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 7:42 PM Subject: [expert] upgrade woes I just upgraded my machine from a k6-2 400 with a super 7 board to a ahtlon 1700xp with a kt333 board and now my system is mucho unstable. I wish I only had an unstable system. I could not boot at all after a very similar upgrade. I installed 8.0 on an unused partition but cannot use my usb mouse. I reinstalled with the recent (06/06/02) cooker isos and cannot boot at all. I get errors about block-major-3 (ide drive) and char-major-13 (mouse I think). It suggests that I boot with kernel option init= but I don't know what that means. As you can tell, I can run my WinXP partiton. :( Chuck Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
