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Building ATA RAID and SMP Support into Slackware 9
TheMadPenguin writes "This HOWTO will describe the steps necessary to build support into Slackware Linux 9.0 for
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and a Promise Ultra ATA RAID redundant drive array. By default, there is no support for these configurations unless specified through a kernel recompilation after the initial install."
If you choose to run Slackware, wouldn't you know how to do this?
:-P
There are so many people that wanna run Linux and heard that slack is the coolest and most "pro" way to do it. Sickens me.
Ciryon
Building ATA RAID and SMP Support into Your Kernel
Those complaints asside, the guy knows what he's doing, so if you want to run RAID or SMP on your kernel, give it a read.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
From the office of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf (aka Baghdad Bob):
"Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and a Promise Ultra ATA RAID redundant drive arrays in Linux do not exist! It is a trick by the coalition forces!"
More at 11.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
As I see it there is nothing drastically different with Slack to require a Slack specific HOWTO.
l
This only complicates things more.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO.htm
Would have sufficed,
Adrian
Most of us Slackware Users already can do this, in our sleep...if you haven't compiled a Kernel a couple of hundred times, you probably aren'ta Slackware user!
Just this past week, I compiled kernels for use on IBM X series e-server SMP systems and ServeRaid (ips) or MTP Fusion Chipsets...plus sound card support...A little tricky, and but no biggie.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Thank god, open source software has aught up to where MS was when they released WinNT! A small step for a distro, a major step for free as in speeh and free as in beer!
It's 7:08 PM.
9 minues
It is easier/better/more difficut BUT more rewarding in Gentoo.
How about buidling proper file dialog support into gtk.
I gotta agree, why was this posted? Lets all compile our kernels. I think I followed these instructions a few times this past week on RedHat... (fyi not by choice. Had it been my choice it would have been Slackware :) ).
it's news because it is new (Posted on Saturday, April 12 @ 18:31:18 EDT ).
that said, like the original poster, if you're running slack you should know how to add stuff like this without reading a howto.
though maybe it saves few minutes for some people.. and gives distribution ranters some online time.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
all you need is to have the OS recognize and support the RAID controller. Actual RAID array building and configuring is a manual hardware task...
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Measure you words, not everyone that uses linux knows how to modify and recompile the kernal. That doesn't make them dumb, does it?
OK, how about this for an idea. With Linux, support for most devices is already built in, and either "just works" or needs a recompile. How about, then, a set of diffs for different devices that you can apply to your /boot/config file to enable support? This way, people won't have to look up the HOWTOs and edit the file manually, but either get the diff direct from the Linux-savvy manufacturer or go to an unoffical webpage (like this one) and get it from there?
So first you look up your device, then you apply the diff to your config file, then you recompile, then your device works.
Am I missing out on anything? This would be very handy, and significantly reduce possibilities for manual-editing-screwups.
Yes, I would like to be the 40th person to post a big phat
"who gives a fuck?"
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
They really do not exist! Our valiant troops destroyed SMP support along with hundreds of the American criminals. Today alone we destroyed over 500 American tanks and over 40 of the evil zionist kernel modules.
Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
Here's a list of links from a recent search I did for "slackware SMP Linux" on altavista.
HOLY CRAP!!!
Any newbie kernel-rebuild HOWTO should explain how to deal with multiple kernels so you can get back to the old one, if the new one fails, without having to resort to a recovery disk.
What's next, how to enable ethernet support?
I mean, I know slashdot has some lame articles.. but this is really lame.
When someone waltzes into #slackware and demands that someone help him get it working, they can all yell back, with perfectly synconized timestamps, "RTFM or switch to Mandrake!"
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
. . . if my Mom has to recompile the kernel just to get symmetric multiprocessing support and a working ATA raid array for chrissake??!!!
-----
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
It's better to use Slackware's kernel-source-2.4.20-noarch-5.tgz package, since it already contains patches for some ext3 bugs as well as the recent ptrace exploit.
If you do use the original 2.4.20 tarball in the source/k directory, you will need to apply the linux-2.4.20.ptrace.diff.gz that you'll find in the same directory, and if you use ext3, you'll also want to apply the patches from the ext3-patches directory.
Now all you have to do is wait for SMPng to come out and that whole "SMP is easier to setup under FreeBSD" will actually be something worth mentioning.
not ready
all this is is the "cartman's mom is a big fat bitch" song in French, with the words "cartman's mom" replaced with "Jesus". Weird.
Aucun Christ? Pas la maman des kyle? Déposez le CRACKPIPE
What's the point of this how-to again? All you need to do is recompile your kernel with those options built in. If you don't know how to recompile your kernel I think you have some more general linux reading to do.
"I compiled kernels for use on IBM X series e-server SMP systems and ServeRaid (ips) or MTP Fusion Chipsets...plus sound card support"
Bah. Bigass systems, big disk arrays, whatever.
it's cool that you got the sound working though...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
how to get this slackware 9 raid smp to work on my MAndrake?
Inspired by actual questions in #linux...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Mind you, Linux is a fairly complicated OS to manage and maintain. Trying to use and maintain Linux simply requires quite a bit of understanding on how it works as nearly everyone knows. Trying to use Linux without reading up on basic things (like kernel recompiles) and understandin them is like driving a car without experience or a license.
The "Everyone should be able to do everything" idea is what's wrong with computers in general these days. No, John Doe does NOT need to set up an IIS webserver that came with his pirated Windows XP Pro CD. Keep things simple for users instead. Easier for them to understand and easier for professionals to maintain. (Even though I know "professionals" who should be banned from using computers, ugh.)
Hate me!
Slackware was the easy distribution!
Lol, how far things have come.
hasnot smp been already integrated in slack kernel in the older versions? it seems to me that there is a kind of mild confusion here...
EXTRAVERSION = -smp_raid
Then you'll have two entries under
I've used Linux for about 6 years, and although I'm no guru, I've gone through many installs of every major distro on quite a few different machines. This time, upgrading from Slack 8.1, I got bad vibes from the start. The installer flaked out on me during partition setup, having to get the kernel sources separately is annoying (particularly since I have to have them to install Nvidia drivers) and overall I got the feeling that the whole thing was just slapped together. This is disapointing since the creator of Slackware went to the same college I did. (Go Dragons)
./configure, chasing down libraries, fixing compiler errors, and such in order to setup programs. I like being able to download a program and just click the bastard to run. I do seriously hope that along with the 2.6 kernel and a more desktop-friendly outlook, more developers will make thier programs more friendly to install for the average joe.
So I downloaded Mandrake 9.1, installed it, and I haven't had a problem.
Since I'm ranting about ease of use anyway, and maybe using my Imac is starting to jade me, but I'm getting tired of running
Nikkos
And in other news: Today, April 12th, is cosmonauts day, Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space in 1961.
Er... yes, yes it does. Dumbass.
I like that phrase... 'Déposez le crackpipe, moderator!'
The advantage slackware has is its simplicity.
You really want a newb to have to deal with nonessential, nonstandard unix bullshit like kudzu, anaconda, rpm, shit like that?
Slackware is THE distro for newbies.
Again, for the billionth time, folks, /usr/src/linux IS NOT supposed to be a symlink to the current kernel sources.
/usr/src/linux SHOULD link to the kernel headers in place when glibc was compiled.
/usr/src/linux-2.5.25
/usr/src/linux-2.2.19
/usr/src/linux->linux-2.2.19
Therefore you may safely have
uname -r
Linux 2.5.25
-jpeg
I guess things change with time. At one time, slackware users used to know how to compile kernels and do shit like this, but I guess now they are just users.. this is sad, what's left out there that's not just users? Gentoo or Debian?
This HOWTO will describe the steps necessary to build support into Slackware Linux 9.0 for [...] RAID redundant drive array.
...or even a RAID redundant independent drive array, or a RAID redundant array of independent (or inexpensive) drives (or disks). Hey, that's getting a little long...maybe an acronym would be useful here. How about: RAID RAID!
Tune in next week when the poster describes how to set up NIC Cards on your PC Computer using only OSS Software from the FSF Foundation.
And people wonder why Linux isn't ready for primetime. Here's a "HOWTO" for installing Promise RAID drivers during a Windows XP install:
Press F6.
APT-GET a clue, install Gentoo
To whomever moderated this off-topic, I have moderated you unfair. This reduces the chance that you will get to moderate in the future.
This joke is entirely on-topic to the point of virtually quoting the topic in the joke. If you don't find it funny, deal. It is not, however, off-topic.
If/when you get to moderate again, please learn to read the moderation guidelines.
Anonymous MetaMod
thanks man
ZC
Well, I dunno... IIRC Linus has mentioned that multiple times, but I've been symlinking my latest source directory to /usr/src/linux for several years now (from 2.0.32 or so), and I've never once struck a problem.
But, if you're paranoid, I suppose it's good advice.
You won't have a problem until you upgrade glibc.
Actually, you probably won't have a problem until you upgrade glibc and THEN run something you've compiled afterwards. Then shit should get interesting.
Believe me, it's not something you want to try to track down, cause once you find out all that trouble could've been solved if you hadn't done something Linus himself told you not to do, you'll feel stupider than a win95 user.
-jpeg
About Promise RAID controllers: When running a mirror, or a spanned mirror, what is the sychronization software for? The controller should be writing the same data to both hard drives. Promise tech support has never been able to answer this.
The readme file says this:
"- SYNCHRONIZATION
This is a maintenance operation for Mirrored (RAID1) arrays. It will compare data on drives for differences. If there are differences it will automatically copy data from the first disk to the second disk in the array. This needs to be performed periodically to maintain data integrity."
Also, have you ever had problems with the array falling apart when there is no hardware failure?
I have ASUS P4S8X mobo and RH9 doesn't support not only RAID (which is based on PDC20368 if I'm not mistaken) but network adapter and sound, too. This is a very popular board, so it would be great for a lot of folks to know how to make Linux work on it.
This article won't work for the Promise 20276 RAID chip, will it? Thanks!
"The first low-cost, high-performance RAID 5 host adapter with all the RAID features you want, at a price you won't believe [about $150]" was touted to work under RedHat Linux, however I have been unable to coax it to work under Gentoo or FreeBSD.
(gnashes teeth)
Oh no another Desktop OS Moron. Slackware is normally used in things like servers. Therefore your comment is redundant.
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
Funny thing is, I *have* actually upgraded my glibc while doing that, and not struck any problems (then again, I may just have been lucky).
I want each of you who responded to the parent post to focus on me as best you can. Looking right at me? Okay, here we go:
That was a joke. But I'm glad you all spoke up in defense of Slackware and Moms everywhere, because you have illustrated a very important point that might be useful to the Slashdot community as a whole, which is:
IF YOU'RE HIGH, DON'T GO TO PUBLIC PLACES AND TRY TO MAKE A POINT.
Weed is meant for simpler things. But if you really want to post high, make it something we can all enjoy, like:
"Don't you get it? What we call 'humans' are just quantum clouds floating in open space!"
-- or --
"No seriously - if we all just grew one fucking tree and sent the fruit to somebody, there would be no hunger! None!"
Better yet, just kick back with your Kazaa rip of 'Freddie Got Fingered' and your beef jerky and have a cool night at home.
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
While I am perfectly willing to accept your prose as gospel, I'm interested in knowing some background information about why doing what you say is a Good Thing.
/usr/src/linux symlinked to whatever kernel I happen to be running this week. Nary a problem.
I've been running Slackware for eight years, with
So, please educate - even if it is for the billionth+1 time.
Kid-proof tablet..
This is ONLY true if your system boneheadedly sets up the /usr/lib kernel header classes as symlinks into /usr/src/linux rather than copying them. Gentoo and LFS aren't like that, I'm not sure which linux distro's still do this.
There's plenty of info available googling - check the lkml archives for Linus' position on the subject.
/usr/src is a system directory. When you compile libs, /usr/src/linux is where your system is going to look for symbol/function definitions. These must be the same headers that glibc was compiled with.
basically,
otherwise, look at my reply to the other reply. My experience was upgrading glibc, upgrading the kernel (changing the symlink), and proceeding to compile perl, openssl, apache, et al. IIRC, openssl was what bombed. It's been a while, and this was on an alpha, which has had its own issues.
-jpeg
Yeah! Enough of those damn users!
Leave computers to us experts!
Thanks for the info, MadPenguin. I've been using my ATA RAID controller as just another IDE controller. I've been too lazy to fiddle with it since Slack 8.1, and haven't needed the extra speed or redundancy (Slack with ReiserFS is really fast). I recently installed Slack 9, but I will keep this FAQ in mind when I upgrade to an Opteron machine with a new ATA RAID controller.
So... the obvious answer would be to use Red Hat.
Spare me your evangelistic garbage; if it works under Red Hat, use Red Hat.
First off, this is by no means ment to be a flame of any type.
That said, why would someone who wanted use a promise controller (RAID) under any O.S.? If you want mirroring, there is the 3ware 2 chan cards, and if you want more, there are the 4+ chan cards. And, the last time I looked, you had to run the mknod command about a dozen times to get things to maybe work. *searches for major/minor #'s*
And as far as SMP? Anyone running SMP should know how to RTFM, at a very min.
One other thing, if your sysadmin is considering deploying *nix for the users, there is a better then fair chance she/he knows how to K.I.S.S it for the users...
OK, rant compleated, we now return you to your regurlar scheduled insomnia...
I have no need for a
This ins't a troll but why does this howto exist? Doesn't the Linux Raid and SMP HOWTO cover this. TLDP.org is all you need
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
maybe you should have looked at UPGRADE.TXT located in the root directory of the Slackware CD-ROM, it is as informative as it is useful. Can you guess why? Because Patrick Volkerding wrote it, and he hopes that you read it before trying to upgrade by running the Slackware installer, which, by the way, has nothing to do with upgrading.
overall I got the feeling that the whole thing was just slapped together.
Strangely enough, I got the feeling that Slackware 9.0 is an extremely well integrated and refined operating system, one which undoubtedly took many hours of hard labor to assemble.
By the way, the system I am currently running is running Slackware 9.0, upgraded from 8.0, which was upgraded from 7.1 by following the instructions in UPGRADE.TXT (here's a little trivia, how many people upgraded from Slack 4 to 7? that's right, none. I was initially very afraid of upgraded because of the strict warning in 7.0's UPGRADE.TXT, but it has worked fine ever since). Everything works perfectly. But as they say, different strokes for different folks. Some prefer the simplicity of Microsoft Windows. On the other end of the spectrum, some prefer the simplicity of Slackware Linux. What 'sucks' to you probably 'rocks' to someone else. I think Windows is shit, but for some reason, millions of other people seem do disagree. Oh what a tragedy.
Well, I suppose you'd start by compiling the support into the kernel and then, uh, run it?
Join Tor today!
I recall installaing a RAID on RedHat 7.1, it was a bit trickier though, but it did the job.....
The lunatic is in my head
Here's a "HOWTO" for installing Promise RAID drivers during a Windows 2000 Server install:
Press F6.
Better?
and what then when John Doe siis Jack Doe running his webserver and wants to do it too?
well i guess you can get in here and configure my computer do all the funny stuff i want it to do? for free, of course.
I don't think any modern and popular Linux distro does this. I know Slack doesn't.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
You forgot step 2. Watch windows bluescreen and kernel dump all your memory to various parts of your harddrive randomly.
LOL!!!1111111 ITZ FUNNAY CAUZ M$ IS THE SUX0RZ! YOU IZ SO FUNNAY!!!!111
No, step 2 is install everything and be up and running in 30 minutes to an hour instead of spending nine days trying to figure out whether you have to pass -foo --bar to recompile the kernel instead of --foo -bar.
Some of us like Windows for a reason.
She might be using Slackintosh. But I think there's about an ice cube's chance in hell that anyone's mom is using Slackware, let alone Slackintosh on a new G4 power Mac...
How can I have missed something so obvious.
It sucks to be me.
I'll throw my sorry self in a cage full of hungry penguins. DO not blame anybody for my untimely but just demise.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.