by Ok, I'm trying to put install RedHat 3.whatever (the version with the
"Red Hat Linux Unleashed" book) on my pc. The CD and controller combo
is a Mitsumi FX001 and a couple-year old SoundBlaster with the built-in
Mitsumi port. Looking through the available image files, I see that I
can pick a Mitsumi CD, or even specify SoundBlaster (they "make" CD's
?), and I've tried each without success. Using the info from my
config.sys that provides access to the CD in DOS, I've also tried
specifying port and interrupt. Neither of the following boot parameters
seems to help at all:
boot: linux mcd=0x230,11
boot: linux sbpcd=0x230,11
Nor does the one specifying 0x230,SoundBlaster... though the front-end
of that eludes me at the moment.
It seems that no matter what I specify (one or more boot parameters, or
none), Linux doesn't see the CD initially, and wants to poll. That'd
be fine except that polling walks right past the settings it needs
(while actually tickling the access light on the CD!) and fails to
realize the CD is right there in its grasp if it'd just close its hand,
so to speak.
I've even tried just running redhat.exe from the CD itself. No matter
what I do, the system ultimately either hangs or panics, usually around
polling time. I haven't tried a reductionist approach yet (pulling
network and bus mouse cards, etc) partly because I'm determined to
demonstrate (to some friends) that Linux isn't gonna *on something
W95 was able to handle. And no, I'm not trying to run them
simultaneously, this is going onto a clean(ed) pair of drives with
nothing more than a smallish (300M) DOS partition in place to start.
I'm disappointed that Win95 handled this hardware setup without batting
an eye... I had high hopes after seeing Mitsumi references in the docs
on the CD. Sigh.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
Patrick Sweeney