Very Computer

I have the following:

- P5-90 (GA-586 motherboard), 32 MB RAM. AWARD BIOS & NCR BIOS (3.06)
- NCR 53c810 SCSI controller: Conner 1060S and Toshiba CD-ROM
- Diamond Stealth 64 w/4MB VRAM on PCI.
- 3.5" and 5.25" fd's.
- SMC Elite16C Ultra (8216C) on the ISA bus.
- Two 16550A's and a parallel port on MB.

I have installed InfoMagic Slackware 2.1 (Linux 1.1.59). The kernel
has been recompiled with all necessary options and installed; lilo
also configured and installed. Root on /sda1, swap on /sda2,
/usr on /sda3 and /home on /sda4. Booting on /sda.

I have two problems:

(1) I get "LI" and booting halts on hard disk; have to use Slackware
    boot floppy and "mount root = /dev/sda1".

(2) The SMC Ultra is not detected by Linux during bootup, and
    around the time the system goes multi-user, a bunch of
    " ... No such device" and "... Network is unreachable" messages
    appears on the screen.

    The card has been used in both hard and soft configured modes.
    I'm now using x300, IRQ 5, xC800, configured with EZStart. I have
    checked the EEPROM settings of the M/B.

If anybody knows how to get around these problems, I shall be most
grateful.

                                        Stefan Mochnacki

--

Astronomy, U. of Toronto  UUCP - {uunet,pyramid}!utai!helios.physics!stefan
Ph. (905) 884-9562        LOCATION - David Dunlap Observatory
FAX (905) 884-2672        Ph. (Mon,Wed) (416)-978-4165 (St.George Campus)

According to documentation that came with the October 94 release of Slackware
in /usr/doc/lilo/README:

  LI  The first stage boot loader was able to load the second stage boot
    loader, but has failed to execute it. This can either be caused by a
    geometry mismatch or by moving /etc/lilo/boot.b without running the map
    installer.

It seems as though I had this problem before I upgraded to 1.1.72.  Basically
the kernel wasn't smart enough to deal with my 730 M. drive.  It seems as
though that was a EIDE supposedly a EIDE specific problem, but I had to
deal with it with a friends 1.6 Gig scsi drive also.  When he upgraded his
kernel to 1.1.95 things got better.

I think that the cure the cure would be to boot off of a newer kernel,
put that kernel in the proper spot (ie /zImage), run /etc/lilo/install,
and reboot if install doesn't give you any error messages.

Quote:

>(2) The SMC Ultra is not detected by Linux during bootup, and
>    around the time the system goes multi-user, a bunch of
>    " ... No such device" and "... Network is unreachable" messages
>    appears on the screen.

>    The card has been used in both hard and soft configured modes.
>    I'm now using x300, IRQ 5, xC800, configured with EZStart. I have
>    checked the EEPROM settings of the M/B.

I could be wrong (imagine that!), but don't you need something like

        ether=5,300,?,?

in the boot string?  When booting from your floppy, type

mount root=/dev/sda1 ether=5,300,?,?
                           ^^^^^^^^^ Take a look at the ether howto to
                                     verify these numbers

Quote:

>If anybody knows how to get around these problems, I shall be most
>grateful.

>                                    Stefan Mochnacki

Now it's your turn-- tell me all you know about ip forwarding.  I want
to know how it works and how to make it work.  

Mike
____________________________________________________________

 Mike Gerdts                   UNIX is user friendly.  It's

 CAE Unix Systems Staff        friends are.
 University of WI - Madison                        --Unknown
____________________________________________________________

Yes, I downloaded both the 1.2.1 kernel and the scsinet2 bootdisk
from wcarchive.cdrom.com, and that did the trick. LILO works, and
the SMC Ultra is recognized. The system works very well now.

Quote:

>>(2) The SMC Ultra is not detected by Linux during bootup, and
>>    around the time the system goes multi-user, a bunch of
>>    " ... No such device" and "... Network is unreachable" messages
>>    appears on the screen.

>I could be wrong (imagine that!), but don't you need something like

>    ether=5,300,?,?

No, the auto-probe should sort everything out.

Quote:>Now it's your turn-- tell me all you know about ip forwarding.  I want
>to know how it works and how to make it work.  

I don't do it (yet) with Linux, but it was pretty straightforward on
Suns, using in.routed as the routing daemon (the experts tout
"gated", but I could never make it work).

Make sure your kernel is compiled with IP forwarding enabled, and that
the rc.* files have the correct ipconfig statements for each interface.
All protocols used have to be supported too (SLIP, PPP etc. if you
use them). All done when you run "make config" at the start of the
kernel recompilation cycle.  Make sure each interface is entered in the
appropriate /etc files such as hosts.

                                        Stefan
--

Astronomy, U. of Toronto  UUCP - {uunet,pyramid}!utai!helios.physics!stefan
Ph. (905) 884-9562        LOCATION - David Dunlap Observatory
FAX (905) 884-2672        Ph. (Mon,Wed) (416)-978-4165 (St.George Campus)