[717] in linux-scsi channel archive
Re: Compaq Prosignia VS with onboard ncr53c810.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Drew Eckhardt)
Tue Oct 24 08:27:26 1995
To: Jim Barry <Jim.Barry@ilp.com>
cc: linux-scsi <linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu>
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 23 Oct 1995 13:13:00 -0000."
<308B8890@bukowsky>
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 22:19:45 -0600
From: Drew Eckhardt <drew@poohsticks.org>
In message <308B8890@bukowsky>, Jim.Barry@ilp.com writes:
>
>I'm trying to get Linux (Slackware 2.3.0) going on a Compaq Prosignia
>VS. The SCSI chip on the motherboard has ncr53c810 printed on it,
>though Windows 95 seems to think it is a ncr53c710. Both these chips are in
>the Linux supported hardware list, but Linux fails to detect any SCSI
>host.
You should have read the SCSI-HOWTO.
BUG REPORTS WHICH FAIL TO FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE OUTLINED IN SECTION 2 WILL
BE IGNORED.
Section 2 then goes into excruciating detail on how to capture your
startup messages, get them to a DOS disk if you can't get Linux on
your hard drive, etc.
If you'd posted the startup messages as the SCSI-HOWTO strongly
suggested, we'd probably see that your PCI BIOS (which is used for
detection) can't be used because the routines are mapped in outside of
the kernel's address space.
>boot> ramdisk ncr53c810=0x8000,11
>boot> ramdisk ncr53c710=0x8000,11
Which won't work. Again, from the SCSI-HOWTO
8. The command line overrides ncr53c810=xxx, etc. don't work.
In stock kernels, this is because their entry points are not included
in init/main.c, which is quite intentional :
The driver makes no attempt to avoid autoprobing for a board
where a command line override was used, so if an override
is used where the board actually showed up to the PCI
configuration routines, you'll have big problems.
The only reason you would need an override would be if the
PCI hardware + BIOS were broken, in which case certain error
recovery routines wouldn't work, rendering the override
less than useful.
Finally, nearly all of people who _think_ they need a command line
override do because they get configuration or other error messages
from the driver. If the driver says you have a configuration
problem, you have a broken system or a configuration problem
and no override is going to fix this.
If some one has gone and added the appropriate entry points to
init/main.c for command line overrides, they are totally unsupported
and may not work.
>but no SCSI hosts or devices are found. Any ideas? What are the
>'defaults' for the NCR drivers? The kernel version is 1.2.8.
>If I cannot get the little *!@ working, my only alternative is to buy a new
>SCSI adapter (probably ISA) which seems ludicrous as the NCR is apparently
>the adapter of choice for Linux on PCI systems.
There's a DOS program for the Compaqs which relocate their 32 bit BIOS
routines to a more reasonable location; ask in one of the general Linux
newsgroups under a heading like Compaq PCI or something.
If you forward the answer to me, I'll include it in the Linux SCSI-HOWTO
until some one gets arround to implementing the pcibios() functions
with accesses to pci configuration space (something which will need to
happen to get the 3940 boards working on systems which didn't get
PCI->PCI bridge support right).
