[TriLUG] Linux on SATA?

[Jason Tower]

did you set up the drives as raid devices in the bios?  if so, that 
might not work too well.  try it with one drive as a regular non-raid 
device and see if that works.  if you want raid under linux, do it in 
software.

jason

James Brigman wrote:
> Wow...nothing will make you feel more like a n00b than falling on your
> face at the beginning of the install process...and on a "sugar-
> sweetened" distro like SuSE 9.x or RHEL/CentOS 4....
> 
> I'm having a problem getting Linux to install on a system with built-in
> SATA RAID. The mbd. is that low-cost "Chaintech 7NJL6". It's an nVidia
> nForce 2 board with the built-in MCPS controller system. The board has
> two RAID-capable SATA connectors, which I want to use so I will get to
> use the fantastic little SATA cables instead of the mongo PATA cables. 
> 
> The particular problem is that sata_nv driver won't "see" the drives on
> the SATA interfaces, even though they are A-OK in the BIOS. 
> 
> If all else fails, I can fall back to plain old parallel-ATA, but that's
> very yucky compared to getting to use the slick SATA cables. If I can
> avoid going back to ATA133, that would be great. 
> 
> SuSE and CentOS try to install the "sata_nv" driver. There's a timing
> bug, however, that's manifest in the kernels used by SuSE 9.2 and
> CentOS4. Good description of the bug can be found here:
> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html
> 
> I guess what made me feel better is that SATA problems are rampant in
> the Linux community, apparently for lack of standards among hardware
> manufacturers. I'm surprised by this: I thought mfr's had come a long
> way from the days of incompatible IDE implementations. Apparently, they
> haven't learned much from their own history. 
> 
> There's been some progress on this bug, found in Kernel 2.6.8.x as
> outlined here:
> http://bugme.osdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3352
> 
> The particular bug is with the ATA_FLAG_SATA_RESET: removing the
> variable from the header of the driver is reported to solve the problem.
> 
> My questions to the group are:
> 
> 1) Are there any magic incantations that could be typed at the
> bootloader prompt such that bugs in the sata_nv driver could be
> sidestepped? (SuSE 9.2/CentOS 4 x86) Or, similarly, anyone know anything
> about getting a fixed sata_nv driver, dropping it on a floppy, and
> booting with an amended driver?
> 
> 2) Has anyone taste-tested SuSE 9.3 on SATA yet, an particularly, nVidia
> SATA? Can anyone out there report success with SuSE 9.3 on built-in SATA
> controller hardware?
> 
> 3) Is anyone getting ANY distro to work with nVidia-based mbds with
> SATA? Or with the Chaintech 7NJL6 working under ANY distro? This board
> has been on sale at TigerDirect for some time, and costs $40 or less,
> after rebate. So I figure someone in the local area has, at least, seen
> this problem too. 
> 
> All experienced feedback welcome. Tangential comments not related to the
> solution to /dev/null, please.
> 
> JKB
> 
>