[NBLUG/talk] Installing an Ultra ATA/133 PCI card on Debian

Lincoln Peters sampln at sbcglobal.net
Mon Dec 1 07:39:01 PST 2003


On Mon, 2003-12-01 at 01:33, Andrew wrote:
> The problem *might* be your kernel. See the letters "bf" in the
> kernel version? That stands for "boot floppy". That's a version
> of the kernel which is designed to work with Debian's
> installation system. In the interest of making the kernel work
> with as wide a range of hardware configurations as possible, the
> Installer developers have compiled many drivers directly into the
> kernel (and some others are made as modules). However, the kernel
> also needs to be able to fit on a floppy (for systems without a
> bootable CD drive), so the drivers for some devices (mostly
> unusual ones) have been left out entirely. The bf2.4 kernel isn't
> a *complete* kernel. The driver for your ATA card, if it exists,
> may not be available to the kernel you've got.

And, as you saw in my last e-mail, I found the kernel driver for the ATA
card, although I haven't checked to see if it was available in the
version that comes with Debian.

> 
> I'd suggest trying a "complete" Debian kernel. Not only will you
> get the complete set of drivers (mostly built as modules, in this
> case), you can also choose a kernel optimized for your
> processor(s). Do an "apt-cache search kernel-image-2.4" to see
> all the 2.4.x kernels.

I downloaded 2.4.23 from ftp.kernel.org and compiled it myself.  The
biggest problems I ran into were that (1) NCurses (for make menuconfig)
was not installed by default, and (2) the Direct Rendering Manager for
SiS video cards (which I don't use but was compiled as a module by
default) did not link properly.  I was able to fix them by installing
NCurses and disabling the SiS driver.

> 
> Note: When you "apt-get install" your new kernel package, you'll
> see a message about enabling initrd support in your boot loader.
> The kernels that come with the installer don't use an initrd, but
> most of the "normal" 2.4 kernels do. The message will tell you
> what to do for lilo.

I didn't use an initrd.  Since the kernel was small enough with only the
essential drivers that it would boot from a floppy, I figured I could
compile the remaining drivers I need as modules.

I remember that RedHat could somehow load kernel modules automatically
whenever they were needed.  Can Debian do that?


-- 
Lincoln Peters <sampln at sbcglobal.net>




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