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."

Comments

Uhm...

[ciryon]

If you choose to run Slackware, wouldn't you know how to do this?

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. :-P

Ciryon

Re:Uhm...

[PhoenixK7]

Yeah, seriously. Some mildly experienced folks might find this useful, but how is this news?

Its just a HOWTO.

Oh well..

Re:Uhm...

[Dogun]

yeah... slack is a bit too hardcore for the masses. Going with an entry level distro is probably the way to go. Then, if you find that Redhat and Mandrake are your mortal enemies, give slack a try. That's the story of my life. :) Never been happier... though I hear Gentoo is tight...

Re:Uhm...

[BrokenHalo]

Slackware is no longer the king of hard.It doesn't pretend to be. It just works; it's one of the simplest distros, ideal for tweakers. The init scripts make sense to "real" unix heads, and if you want to recompile anything (or everything) from scratch, it won't stand in your way like rpm or perhaps even deb based systems will. Basically, it just gives you a world to stand on while you do it.

Why Slackware

[MBCook]

Why is this Slackware specific. These instructions would work on most distros (with one or two small changes of where the boot kernel is kept). A better title would have been:

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.

This just in...

[Znonymous Coward]

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.

Generic HOWTO would have sufficed?

[Lefty2446]

As I see it there is nothing drastically different with Slack to require a Slack specific HOWTO.

This only complicates things more.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO.html

Would have sufficed,

Adrian

Re:Place your bets!

[damien_kane]

It's 7:08 PM.
9 minues
It is easier/better/more difficut BUT more rewarding in Gentoo.

it's news.

[gl4ss]

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.

RAID !=OS's job

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

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...

A (hopefully) good idea

[3141]

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.

Its not a joke

[Mohammed Al-Sahaf]

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.

HOW WILL LINUX EVER BE A CONSUMER OS. . .

[Fritz Benwalla]

. . . if my Mom has to recompile the kernel just to get symmetric multiprocessing support and a working ATA raid array for chrissake??!!!

-----

Use Slackware's kernel source package.

[volkerdi]

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.

Re:Err...

[Dark Lord Seth]

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.)

Back in my day, sonny...

[BoomerSooner]

Slackware was the easy distribution!

Lol, how far things have come.

mistake, imho

[doodleboy]

article says: #> mv /lib/modules/2.4.20 /lib/modules/orig

Bad bad bad. Now the original config is unbootable, a bad thing when you're monkeying around with the kernel. What you do is edit the kernel Makefile and add something to the extraversion parameter, i.e.:

EXTRAVERSION = -smp_raid

Then you'll have two entries under /lib/modules, 2.4.20 and 2.4.20-smp_raid. Make the appropriate entries in /etc/lilo.conf and you can boot either one. Disabling a stock, working kernel config is lunacy. Using extraversion is obviously the safer method, that's what it's for. This is all mentioned in the kernel HOWTO, iirc.

I'm not impressed with Slack 9

[Nikkos]

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)

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 ./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.

Nikkos

And in other news: Today, April 12th, is cosmonauts day, Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space in 1961.

and the traditional /usr/src/linux symlink mistake

[mister_jpeg]

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.

Therefore you may safely have

uname -r

Linux 2.5.25

/usr/src/linux-2.5.25
/usr/src/linux-2.2.19
/usr/src/linux->linux-2.2.19

from the department of redundancy department

[Erpo]

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.