[NBLUG/talk] Finding an compatible IDE motherboard

[Todd Cary]

Ross -

Thank you for your patience and thoroughness in your responses.  The 
conclusion I had came to awhile ago is the board needs to be replaced.  
When I found out that I could not install Centos 4, I decided to try an 
old box that was ear marked for computer heaven (not even sure what 
board is in it) and Centos loaded without a hitch and has been running 
for over a year while I decide what to do with the "real" server :-) !

My quandary is how to chose/find some simple board to replace it that 
has a 478 socket for an Intel CPU and IDE channels *and* will run the 
latest Linux.  When I look at the plethora of motherboards (mostly using 
new chip sets), I get lost.

Todd

Ross Thomas wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:25:49 -0800, "Todd Cary"
> <todd at aristesoftware.com> said:
>   
>> Conceptually, what you say makes sense.  Red Hat 9 works with
>> the BE7-RAID board so what would be different in Centos (Red
>> Hat Enterprise 4) so that it will not work?  Granted, the Kernel is
>> different in RH Enterprise from RH 9, but is it that different?
>>     
>
> The biggest difference between RH9 and the others is that RH9
> uses a 2.4 kernel while the others have a 2.6 kernel.  This is a
> major change and will efffectively nullify any drivers that may
> have been provided previously.
>
>   
>> On the Highpoint site, I here is this:
>>
>> http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/bios_rr133.htm
>>     
>
> This would be a really unfortunate turn of events.  What does
> the lspci command report for that device?  You'll need to run
> the command as root to get the extra info (-vvv).
>
>    lspci -vvv
>
>   
>> Then I had this exchange some time ago where the proprietary
>> drivers are discussed, but I am not sure what to make of it.
>>
>> http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2005-September/052353.html
>>
>> Does this make sense to you?
>>     
>
> Yep.  And I'm hoping that your device isn't an RR133 but
> it could very well be.  I've seen a couple of people say that
> a later version of the 2.6 kernel supports it, if compiled in.
> I'd venture to guess that recent distros have abandonded it
> since it is neither enterperise nor very open.
>
> One thing you can do is download the CentOS Livecd and
> see if it at least recognizes the device.  If it does, then all is
> not lost.  If not, it may mean that you are stuck at RH9 with
> the current setup.
>
> *** Please do a backup before playing with the system. ***
>
> If the device can be put into JBOD mode after a backup you
> can then use standard software Linux RAID to achieve the
> same result.  In JBOD mode they should just show as a couple
> of standard IDE or SCSI disks (fingers crossed).
>
> How much info is on this meta-disk?  Is it in RAID0 or RAID1?
>
> Whoever thought turning RAID controllers into Winmodems was
> a good thing should be taken out and shot.  Repeatedly & often.
> Daily if possible.  :-(
>
> Ross.
>
>   

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