Re: [gentoo-dev] RC6 Boot ISO reports + info [kind of long]

[scott worley <folokai@earthlink.net>]

Donny Davies wrote:

>Hi,devs
>
>I'm wondering whether some friendly gentoo'ers with SCSI setups won't
>comment on our new self-booting build ISO system?
>
>I can report no success on a Symbios 53c810 controller, with the SCSI
>BIOS on the MB, in combination with an Yamaha SCSI writer. Sounds
>like a funny setup I know, but it can work. I seem to have forgotten which
>Linux distribution's bootable installation CD it was that actually worked
>for this particular setup. I must try to rediscover it to see what is different!
>
>The error is:
>isolinux: Loading spec packet failed, trying to wing it...
>isolinux: Found something at drive = F0
>isolinux: Looks like it might be right, continuing...
>isolinux: Disk Error 00 drive F0
>Boot failed: press a key to retry
>
>For what it's worth all of our build iso's boot perfectly and work fine on
>any type of IDE equipment I've thrown at them so far, its just the SCSI
>that needs some tweaking. This isn't just a case of adding support for the
>53c810 controller or something else simple/similar is it drobbins?
>
>Also, I would note that the old 1.0_rc4_pre2 ISO I have here, boots
>successfully on my SCSI setup. I think that one is based on a different
>boot system with grub though. Further, I would note that the RC6 ISOS
>get the SCSI BIOS to indicate that a bootable CDROM has been found
>and that it will use "Non-Emulation Mode". I have found Windows NT/2000
>CDROMS to give the same notice, but they can boot OK. I have also
>noticed that Windows 9x and the RC4 CD get the SCSI BIOS to say it
>has found a bootable CDROM which will "Emulate CD-ROM as Floppy
>Drive A:". I can use those CD's will boot with. To sum that up, I believe
>that this "emulation mode" business/option, appears to have no effect on
>whether the CD will boot or not, I guess its just some option in making
>a bootable CDROM. Hmm I should read-up some on this isolinux stuff :)
>
>Ideally you could send in a quick "hey it works on this" report to the
>development mailing list, or any difficulties you are experiencing so that
>we can establish where the problem hardware/devices are, and make
>the required fixes. I do realise that many of us are fully capable of
>"working around" the problem, and adjusting locally. I do this myself
>sometimes. Usually that means we dont speak up, but instead just merrily
>cruise along. Alas it would be better to file a report if something could
>be improved, because that way nobody gets left behind, or stuck with
>a CD that wont boot for them. Mind you, I'm not saying we can make
>a CD that will boot on every system, probably not. It would be going
>a long way however into putting together a solid, robust, bootable build
>ISO if we can manage to cover cases like mine, and possibly some other
>obscure ones/combinations. With the way things are going, I wouldn't be
>surprised to see this solved very soon.
>
>As another sidenote, my particular SCSI driver has amusingly enough
>been the default pre-selected host driver inside of the kernel menuconfig
>target/program for all of 2.4.x and 2.2.x series that I can remember.
>Although I'm certain they decided upon that choice in order to minimise
>CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C8XX and CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C8XX
>confusion. This seems to be a pretty important chip to be supported,
>as theres tonnes of cards based on it. And then theres the fact that this
>is a woodchip.. *rimshot*. But I digress..
>
>You may find the newest revisions of the (non)bootable ;-) ISO image in:
>ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/snapshots/build/ix86-linux-gnu
>As of now the latest one is "build-ix86-1.0_rc6-r9.iso". It is ~16MB long.
>
>The master plan I gather, is to eventually come up with a solid self-booting
>build CD that contains a chroot'able build environment, along with a recent
>snapshot of the portage tree, and a good selection of distfiles (probably at
>least enough to do `emerge system`). With some good bug reports and more
>testing this can be a reality very soon indeed!
>
>Another tidbit I'd like to explore, is the possibility of using the -multi option
>to cdrecord when writing the ISO. Whilst I've been experimenting with it
>I have noticed that unfortunately you dont seem to be able to use the newest
>session you've written to the disc, only the first one you write is usable for
>booting. So, you can write for example the -r9 release of the build ISO to
>CD, then tomorrow you could write the -r10 release, both using the -multi
>option, but only the first session is accessible/usable.. at least for booting
>anyway. I gather one needs software support in the running OS before one
>can access the later sessions. I'd really like to be able to add additional
>releases of the build ISO to a CD, in multiple sessions, and have the newest
>one be available for booting the computer. Does somebody know more
>about this?
>
>So please *do* tell us whats up with our bootable build CD system and
>your hardware. How's it working for you?
>
>Cheers,
>Donny (aka woodchip)
>
>
>
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Hi,

I just burned rc6-9 and was able to boot with SCSI.  Didn't proceed with 
install but the CD did boot to  root prompt.  System is:
AHA-2940UW
Yamaha CD-RW
Sony CD-R
2 Seagate UW HD's

scott worley
folokai@earthlink.net