Problems with PROMISE Card in Linux

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 09:17:23AM -0400, Howard Gibson wrote:
> On 29 Aug 2004 22:32:40 -0400
> Paul King <pking123-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 
> > I have a PROMISE card which has some unformatted LINUX partitions and
> > some Windows partitions. It detects under Windows, but is only detected
> > by the kernel under LINUX.
> 
> Paul,
> 
>    I had problems with my Promise card too.  What follows are my personal notes on setting up my Promise card.
>      _________________________________________________________
> 
> Setting up the Promise Card
> 
>    There are no instructions on the Promise website on setting up
>    an  Ultra100TX2  card for Linux. I emailed their support about
>    this,  and they sent me a document, in Word format, of course.
>    This covered the setup of Red Hat 6.2 and 7.0.
>     1. Boot Red Hat from the CD.
>     2. When the graphical installer comes up, hit [Ctrl][Alt][F2]
>        to get into a virtual terminal.
>     3. From the terminal, type "cat /proc/pci | less".
>     4. They  describe  the  sequence  you are supposed to find. I
>        found   the   following,   copied  labouriously  from  the
>        screen...
> 
> Bus 0, device 12, function  0:
>   Class 0180: PCI device 105a:4d69 (rev 2).
>     IRQ 11.
>     Master Capable.  No bursts.  Min Gnt=4.Max Lat=18.
>     I/O at 0xb800 [0xb807]
>     I/O at 0xb400 [0xb403]
>     I/O at 0xb000 [0xb007]
>     I/O at 0xa800 [0xa803]
>     I/O at 0xa400 [0xa40f]
>     Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xd5000000 [0xd5003fff]
> 
> 
>        Write  down the first four values, starting from 0xb800 in
>        this  example.  The  "0x"  indicates  that the value is in
>        hexadecimal  format.  The  remaining  four  digits are the
>        hexadecimal number.
>     5. The next thing I was to do was to type in...
> 
> ide2=0xb800,0xb402 ide3=0xb000,0xa802
> 
> 
>        Note  how I added 2 to the second and fourth values that I
>        pulled off the previous output.
>     6. Reboot.  I  could  not  find a (re)boot commmand, so I hit
>        reset.
>     7. When the boot prompt comes up type...
> 
> boot:  linux ide2=0xb800,0xb402 ide3=0xb000,0xa802
> 
> 
>        The  Promise instructions said to use the word "text", but
>        I  used  "linux"  instead.  The  word  "linux" selects the
>        standard  graphic  install. The word "text" causes a plain
>        text install.
>     8. The  instructions  describe  how  to configure LILO to use
>        these boot parameters. On Red Hat 8, we are using GRUB. We
>        will get those parameters in somehow.
>      _________________________________________________________
> 
>    When I booted Red Hat 8.0, it (something) found the Promise card.  Anaconda did not find it.  Here are my boot loader notes.
> 
>      _________________________________________________________
> 
> Boot Loader
> 
>    I  agreed to a boot loader on /dev/hde1. I have entered a boot
>    loader  password,  and  I clicked the "Configure advanced boot
>    loader"  button.  This  is my chance to enter the Promise card
>    values into the boot line, automatically.
> 
>    The   next  thing  it  asked  me  for  were  the  boot  loader
>    parameters. I entered my Promise card boot string.
>      _________________________________________________________

Well any newer linux kernel supports that chip just fine, and kernels
that are older simply do not.  The hack to force it to use it as a plain
ide chip is just a bad idea, so forget about those parameters, and just
get something with a kernel from the last 2 years and you should be
fine.  Don't try to use a very obsolete distribution, since it won't
support it well if at all.  All newer distribution releases (all current
ones for that matter) will work just fine.

Lennart Sorensen
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