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

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

[Donny Davies]

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)

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

[scott worley]

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)
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>gentoo-dev mailing list
>gentoo-dev@cvs.gentoo.org
>http://cvs.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev
>
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

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

[Daniel Robbins]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 03:08:25PM -0400, Donny Davies wrote:

> 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?

No, the kernel and initrd loading happens *before* Linux, so this sounds like
a BIOS/SCSI BIOS issue.

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

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

[Daniel Robbins]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 03:08:25PM -0400, Donny Davies wrote:

> 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!

What brand BIOS and BIOS version does your motherboard have?  The most recent
version of isolinux (we're using the next most recent version) has this fix:

 ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps other buggy BIOSes as well.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

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

[scott worley]

Daniel Robbins wrote:

>On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 03:08:25PM -0400, Donny Davies wrote:
>
>>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!
>>
>
>What brand BIOS and BIOS version does your motherboard have?  The most recent
>version of isolinux (we're using the next most recent version) has this fix:
>
> ISOLINUX: Bug workaround for Award BIOS 4.51, and perhaps other buggy BIOSes as well.
>
>Best Regards,
>
Hi,

Related SCSI installed topic.  Where are the drive dev nodes???
rc6-r9 iso boots ok on my AHA-2940UW system.  Fdisk and mkreiserfs can't 
find the drives.  When I look in /dev the only entries for the SCSI 
devices are:

/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/targetX/lun0 where X=0,1,5,6 for my 2 HD's and CD's.

Can't use these device entries to access the drives with fdisk or 
mkreiserfs.

I seem to remember on rc5 that there was a /dev/disk/... set of nodes 
what had the partitions.

Is there anyway to create these nodes in the iso image shell?

thanks,
scott worley
folokai@earthlink.net

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

[Daniel Robbins]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 05:07:02PM -0700, scott worley wrote:

> /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/targetX/lun0 where X=0,1,5,6 for my 2 HD's and CD's.
> Can't use these device entries to access the drives with fdisk or 
> mkreiserfs.

lun0 is a directory.  There should be a device node inside it that *should*
be recognized by fdisk and mkreiserfs.

> I seem to remember on rc5 that there was a /dev/disk/... set of nodes 
> what had the partitions.
> Is there anyway to create these nodes in the iso image shell?

There's no /dev/discs/ directory?  

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

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

[scott worley]

Daniel Robbins wrote:

>On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 05:07:02PM -0700, scott worley wrote:
>
>>/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/targetX/lun0 where X=0,1,5,6 for my 2 HD's and CD's.
>>Can't use these device entries to access the drives with fdisk or 
>>mkreiserfs.
>>
>
>lun0 is a directory.  There should be a device node inside it that *should*
>be recognized by fdisk and mkreiserfs.
>
>>I seem to remember on rc5 that there was a /dev/disk/... set of nodes 
>>what had the partitions.
>>Is there anyway to create these nodes in the iso image shell?
>>
>
>There's no /dev/discs/ directory?  
>
Daniel,

After loading scsi_mod and aic7xxx, I checked dmesg and all scsi devices 
were found.

There is no entry for /dev/discs and all the 
/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/targetX/lun0's are empty.

I put a modules.conf and modules.devfs into the rescue /etc dir and 
restarted devfsd.  Didn't work.  Of course, I was guessing.

scott

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

[Daniel Robbins]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 07:32:12PM -0700, scott worley wrote:

> >There's no /dev/discs/ directory?  
> >
> Daniel,
> 
> After loading scsi_mod and aic7xxx, I checked dmesg and all scsi devices 
> were found.
> 
> There is no entry for /dev/discs and all the 
> /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/targetX/lun0's are empty.
> 
> I put a modules.conf and modules.devfs into the rescue /etc dir and 
> restarted devfsd.  Didn't work.  Of course, I was guessing.

I really don't think that this is a problem with devfs; more likely it is
a problem with the aic7xxx module, whose responsibility it is to actually
register the devices with devfs.  Try:

cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0 and make sure that the driver sees all your targets.

cat /proc/scsi/scsi and make sure that your targets show up here too.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] RC6 Boot ISO reports + aic7xxx problem solved!

[scott worley]

Daniel Robbins wrote:

>On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 07:32:12PM -0700, scott worley wrote:
>
>>>There's no /dev/discs/ directory?  
>>>
>>Daniel,
>>
>>After loading scsi_mod and aic7xxx, I checked dmesg and all scsi devices 
>>were found.
>>
>>There is no entry for /dev/discs and all the 
>>/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/targetX/lun0's are empty.
>>
>>I put a modules.conf and modules.devfs into the rescue /etc dir and 
>>restarted devfsd.  Didn't work.  Of course, I was guessing.
>>
>
>I really don't think that this is a problem with devfs; more likely it is
>a problem with the aic7xxx module, whose responsibility it is to actually
>register the devices with devfs.  Try:
>
>cat /proc/scsi/aic7xxx/0 and make sure that the driver sees all your targets.
>
>cat /proc/scsi/scsi and make sure that your targets show up here too.
>
>Best Regards,
>
Daniel,

My stupidity!  Must load sd_mod.o to get scsi disk support.  Everything 
works when I insmod in this order:

scsi_mod,  the scsi core
sd_mod, scsi HD support
sr_mod, scsi CD support
aic7xxx, adapter driver


Must remember to check modules.dep for dependencies when manually 
loading a whole subsystem!


scott

Re: [gentoo-dev] RC6 Boot ISO reports + aic7xxx problem solved!

[Daniel Robbins]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 08:50:54PM -0700, scott worley wrote:

> My stupidity!  Must load sd_mod.o to get scsi disk support.  Everything 
> works when I insmod in this order:
> 
> scsi_mod,  the scsi core
> sd_mod, scsi HD support
> sr_mod, scsi CD support
> aic7xxx, adapter driver

OK; this is also something that I can add to the build instructions.  My
test box is IDE, so I haven't been able to test this yet.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] RC6 Boot ISO reports + aic7xxx problem solved!

[Collins Richey]

On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 22:53:45 -0600 Daniel Robbins <drobbins@gentoo.org>
wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 08:50:54PM -0700, scott worley wrote:
> 
> > My stupidity!  Must load sd_mod.o to get scsi disk support. 
> Everything 
> > works when I insmod in this order:
> > 
> > scsi_mod,  the scsi core
> > sd_mod, scsi HD support
> > sr_mod, scsi CD support
> > aic7xxx, adapter driver
> 
> OK; this is also something that I can add to the build instructions.
>  My
> test box is IDE, so I haven't been able to test this yet.
> 

Is there any reason you're not using modprobe (which is designed to
resolve multiple module dependancies) instead of insmod for a specific
list of modules?

-- 
Collins Richey
Denver Area
jblinux 2.2 xfce sylpheed opera

Re: [gentoo-dev] RC6 Boot ISO reports + aic7xxx problem solved!

[Daniel Robbins]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 06:28:21AM +0700, Collins Richey wrote:

> Is there any reason you're not using modprobe (which is designed to
> resolve multiple module dependancies) instead of insmod for a specific
> list of modules?

Because as of right now, modprobe is not included on the default zdisk
initrd (there's just a stub bash script to satisfy a kernel dependency).
I may change this, however.  zdisk is designed to fit on a 1.44Mb floppy,
but we aren't.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] RC6 Boot ISO reports + aic7xxx problem solved!

[scott worley]

Collins Richey wrote:

>On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 22:53:45 -0600 Daniel Robbins <drobbins@gentoo.org>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 08:50:54PM -0700, scott worley wrote:
>>
>>>My stupidity!  Must load sd_mod.o to get scsi disk support. 
>>>
>>Everything 
>>
>>>works when I insmod in this order:
>>>
>>>scsi_mod,  the scsi core
>>>sd_mod, scsi HD support
>>>sr_mod, scsi CD support
>>>aic7xxx, adapter driver
>>>
>>OK; this is also something that I can add to the build instructions.
>> My
>>test box is IDE, so I haven't been able to test this yet.
>>
>
>Is there any reason you're not using modprobe (which is designed to
>resolve multiple module dependancies) instead of insmod for a specific
>list of modules?
>
The minimal rc6 iso environment only allows insmod.  If you execute 
modprobe it prints a message stating please use insmod.

The key is to check dependencies in the modules.dep file.

Also, the current rc6 iso does not have pppd present.  I was able to 
connect to the network by mounting my Vector linux partition and copying 
pppd and wvdial to the gentoo partition.  Wvdial requires libstdc++ so I 
had to copy it into /mnt/gentoo/usr/local/lib.  Plus, I was lucky that 
the vector linux binaries would work in the gentoo environment.

So, I ended up loading the following modules before chrooting:

scsi_mod
sd_mod
sr_mod
aic7xxx
slhc
ppp_generic
ppp_async
ppp_deflate


scott

Re: [gentoo-dev] RC6 Boot ISO reports + aic7xxx problem solved!

[Daniel Robbins]

On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 10:01:52AM -0700, scott worley wrote:

> The minimal rc6 iso environment only allows insmod.  If you execute 
> modprobe it prints a message stating please use insmod.

The new -r11 CD (which will hopefully work, unlike -r10.iso) has modprobe
on it.

> Also, the current rc6 iso does not have pppd present. 

Yep. :)

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.