[5538] in Release_7.7_team
Re: AMENDED: Re: stock answer for install problems with Dell gx620 for both Athena and RHEL
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William Cattey)
Mon Jul 17 17:29:09 2006
In-Reply-To: <20060717172122.fjz6we3cae0wcsko@webmail.mit.edu>
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Cc: "andrew m. boardman" <amb@mit.edu>, release-team@mit.edu
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From: William Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:28:27 -0400
To: Heather Anne Harrison <aurora@mit.edu>
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Thanks! I apologize for sending a set of detailed amendments, and
then another set.
I'll try, in future to get things right the first time.
Thanks VERY much for making the changes so quickly. I think the SA
looks great.
-wdc
On Jul 17, 2006, at 5:21 PM, Heather Anne Harrison wrote:
>
> Done, unless there's a third set of corrections that arrives as
> soon as I hit send. :)
>
> Heather Anne
> aurora@mit.edu
>
>
> Quoting William Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>:
>
>> Throw away the suggestion I sent in the previous email. After I
>> sent it, I noticed one more thing to change, and decided to
>> propose an even more refined set of amendments.
>>
>> In stock answer 8151 make the following 3 changes:
>>
>> 1. Delete the sentence:
>> The Athena installer will automatically deal with the X problem.
>>
>> The customers will not see an X problem, so the sentence will
>> just confuse them.
>>
>> 2. Change the question from being about X to being about the
>> disks, and include the error message the customers will see:
>>
>> Q: When I try to install Athena on my Dell GX620, I see the error
>> "No hard drives have been found."
>>
>> 3. Change the answer intro to:
>>
>> A: The Dell GX620 has a newer SATA interface than what the
>> current Athena installer recognizes. You can install Athena if
>> you change the BIOS setting to enable "Combination" mode on the
>> SATA controller.
>>
>> -wdc
>>
>> On Jul 14, 2006, at 8:13 AM, Heather Anne Harrison wrote:
>>
>>> Here are the stock answers. Let me know if they need any
>>> updates. The information on the actual problem seems a bit
>>> scant.
>>>
>>> http://itinfo.mit.edu/answer.php?id=8150
>>> http://itinfo.mit.edu/answer.php?id=8151
>>>
>>> Heather Anne
>>> aurora@mit.edu
>>>
>>>
>>> Quoting "andrew m. boardman" <amb@MIT.EDU>:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> [As requested by wdc, here's a basic stock answer for the gx620
>>>> install
>>>> issues. This should be enough for someone with a minimally
>>>> pointy hat,
>>>> but feel free to flesh it out as desired. Note that there's a
>>>> faint hope
>>>> that the RHEL4 problem will go away with the next quarterly
>>>> update due
>>>> any day now, the Athena problem may go away if we get some
>>>> lovin' in the
>>>> next 2.4 kernel update and I build a new installer based on
>>>> that, and the
>>>> whole concept of the Athena install working at all on the gx620
>>>> is based
>>>> on the currently-dev-cell-only installer volume.]
>>>>
>>>> The Dell gx620 has some hardware that our software options
>>>> haven't quite
>>>> caught up with, and (as of July 2006) some special (but easy)
>>>> steps are
>>>> necessary for a successful install on this platform.
>>>>
>>>> 1) For stock RHEL4, the install won't configure X properly. Do the
>>>> install in text mode (once the machine starts booting from
>>>> the install
>>>> CD, there will be on-screen instructions for this), and when the
>>>> install is complete edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and replace the
>>>> display
>>>> driver spec of "radeon" with "vesa".
>>>>
>>>> 2) For Athena, you'll need to change a BIOS option. Boot the
>>>> machine and
>>>> press F2 during the startup sequence to enter setup mode.
>>>> From the
>>>> main setup page, use the up/down arrow keys to select "Drives"
>>>> and
>>>> press Enter, then select "SATA Operation" and press enter.
>>>> Use the
>>>> left/right arrow keys to select "Combination" (instead of the
>>>> default
>>>> of "Normal") and press Enter. Press escape to end setup mode,
>>>> then
>>>> "Save/Exit" to confirm your changes. After this, you should
>>>> be able
>>>> to install normally, and you can switch the SATA mode back to
>>>> "Normal"
>>>> after the install if desired. (The Athena installer will
>>>> automatically deal with the X problem described above.)
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
