(no subject)
ABDOUL DIARRA (evercare@pop.erols.com)
Fri, 12 Apr 96 08:40:13 -0700
I tried to load the linux op.system it failed now i cannot access my seagate hard
drive, no partions on it but i see the light blinking on bay.
please help> 1. What State Is Linux/Alpha In?
>
> Contents of this section
>
> Pretty much everything is up and running: there is now XFree86,
> LaTeX, ghostview, Mosaic, Emacs, gcc, NFS, automounter, all sorts of
> shells, perl, python, Tcl/Tk, scheme, apache HTTP server, and pretty
> much anything else that's freely available. X11 works well on
> several video cards (see below). The only thing that is still dearly
> missing is a GNU ld that can produce shared libraries and a freely
> available dynamic loader. Besides that, performance tuning is
> probably the biggest remaining junk of work. In particular libc and
> libm need more code optimized specifically for the Alpha
> architecture.
>
> Linux/Alpha presently runs on many (most?) of the Alpha boxes that
> come with the PCI or EISA bus. This excludes the older TURBOchannel
> based DEC 3000 series of workstations.
>
> 1.1 Supported Drivers
>
> Drivers that are known to work (let us known if there is something
> new):
>
> * X11: Servers for the following chips are available for ftp at
> DEC's ftp site :
> o Mach64
> o S3
> o TGA
> * keyboard
> * console (TGA, EGA+ or VGA+ compatible cards)
> * selection (console mouse support)
> * serial
> * line-printer (centronics port)
> * floppy
> * SCSI: disks, CD-ROMs, and tapes seem to work fine. Host
> adapters that are known to work:
> o ncr53c810
> o aha1740 (on Jensen, at least).
> * ftape (QIC-80 tape drives): you'll need the BFD-based insmod
> utility.
> * IDE driver: disks and CD-ROMs (ATAPI) are know to work fine.
> * Networking:
> o Ethernet drivers: de4x5, de500, depca, ewrk3, ne2000. The
> following drivers are supposed to be working as well:
> + Western Digital (aka SMC Elite) wd80x3
> + SMC Ultra
> + SMC EtherEZ
> + 3Com 3c503, 3c503/16
> + Cabletron e2100
> + Hewlett Packard PC Lan (model 27245, uses hp.c)
> + Hewlett Packard PC Lan+ (model 27247 or 27252A, uses
> hp-plus.c)
> + Ansel AC3200 EISA card.
> If you experience problems with one of these, you might
> want to drop a note to Paul Gortmaker
> o Other drivers: ppp, ibmtr (IBM token ring driver).
> * Sound cards: SoundBlaster compatible cards seem to work well.
> The Microsoft Sound System compatible card built into the UDB
> is supported, too.
> * Joystick: The joystick interface on a SoundBlaster16 (which is
> just a regular PC joystick port) is known to work with
> joystick-0.7.3 (as a module). There were a few minor patches
> that had to be applied. If you want it, send mail to David
> Mosberger . The "koules" game is known to work with the
> joystick.
>
> 1.2 Known Bugs And Workarounds
>
> This section lists known bugs in Linux/Alpha and discusses how they
> can be avoided or worked around. As things are under constant
> development, this section is rather volatile. Just because it isn't
> listed here doesn't mean the problem isn't known already. However,
> before sending mail off to linux-alpha or axp-list , be sure to
> check this section first. If you discover a new problem/workaround,
> we would appreciate if you could send us a report (preferably in
> linuxdoc SGML format).
>
> Kernel reports 2.88MB floppy drive:
>
> On the Alphas, the kernel always reports floppy drives as
> having 2.88MB capacity even if a smaller capacity drive is
> installed. This is nothing to worry about: normally, the floppy
> driver automatically detects and selects the correct capacity
> so everything will work fine. The only exception to this rule
> is when formatting a new floppy disk. To do this, you'll need
> to select the device name with the correct capacity. For
> example, if the system has a 1.4MB drive, format /dev/fd0H1440
> instead of /dev/fd0.
>
> Unaligned accesses:
>
> The Alpha, like all real RISC CPUs, requires that memory
> accesses are naturally aligned. For example, reading a 4 byte
> integer from memory requires that the address of the integer be
> a multiple of 4. Similarly, 8 byte integers need to start at an
> address that is a multiple of 8. If the CPU attempts to access
> a word that is not properly aligned, the CPU will trap into the
> kernel and issue a warning message. The kernel will then go
> ahead and emulate the unaligned access so that the user-level
> process executes as if nothing had happened (except for a
> substantial slow-down due to the fault).
>
> Typically, an unaligned fault message looks like this:
>
> X(26738): unaligned trap at 000000012004b6f0: 00000001401b20ca 28 1
>
>
> What this means is that the process executing command X (the
> X11 server) with process id 26738 caused an unaligned fault
> accessing address 0x1401b20ca. This access was performed by the
> instruction located at address 0x12004b6f0. The other numbers
> are less important, but if you check the kernel sources, you'll
> find that they tell you more info on what kind of instruction
> caused the fault (e.g., a load vs. a store).
>
> You do not need to be overly alarmed when seeing such a
> message. The program causing the faults will work correctly.
> Eventually, all unaligned accesses will be fixed, but in the
> meantime, just ignore these messages (if you're a programmer,
> please take a minute and fix the source of the unaligned access
> instead...).
>
> Linker issues warning: using multiple gp values message:
>
> This is a warning message that is often issued by the linker
> when building a large program. Unless you're into low-level
> hacking, you don't want to know what it means. The good news
> is: you can safely ignore this message and this warning will be
> optional in the future.
>
> IDE driver causes time to run slow:
>
> The default configuration of the IDE driver disables interrupts
> for extended periods of time. This causes the kernel to loose
> timer interrupts and as a result, time runs slow. To avoid
> this, use the following command on all of the IDE drives in
> your system:
>
> hdparm -u 1 /dev/hd?
>
>
> This reconfigures the IDE driver to reenable interrupts as
> quickly as possible.
>
> minlabel,fdisklabel fail to update kernel partition table:
>
> Do not attempt to use a system after changing the partition
> table. Even if minlabel and/or fdisk show the correct values
> you will have to reboot the machine before the new values take
> effect.
>
> xterm has bad stty settings:
>
> True enough: the initial terminal control characters are weird
> with the current xterm binaries. Be sure to issue stty sane
> before doing any real work in an xterm.
>
> ps, top show incorrect values:
>
> Be sure to get the latest psproc patches from the AZStarNet
> site. The kernel interfaces changed a couple times around
> 1.3.39 but should be fairly stable now. With the latest
> patches, you should get correct priority values, memory sizes,
> and even waiting channels will be displayed correctly.
>
> Some X11 fonts look poor:
>
> It appears that the S3 server has a problem with displaying
> scalable fonts properly. Fixed scale fonts work fine, though.
> Thus, be sure to list the 75dpi and 100dpi font directories
> before the Type1 and Speedo directories in your fontpath! (See
> /etc/X11/XF86Config and/or the xset command.)
>
> Kernel hangs or panics when trying to mount root file system:
>
> The Linux kernel currently has /dev/sda2 hardcoded as its
> default root file system. Thus, if your root file system is on
> any other disk or partition, you will have to specify the boot
> option root=/dev/your-root-dev/partition. For example, if the
> root file system is on /dev/hda1, you'd specify root=/dev/hda1.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Next Chapter
>
> Table of contents of this chapter, General table of contents
>
> Top of the document, Beginning of this Chapter