4. Installation

4.1 Installing and configuring the hardware

Refer to the instruction manual to install the card and the drives. For DPT, since a storage manager for Linux doesn't exist yet, you need to create a MS-DOS-formatted disk with the system on it (usually created using the command "format /s" at the MS-DOS prompt). You will also be using the DPT storage manager for MS-DOS, which you should probably make a copy of for safety.

Once the hardware is in place, boot using the DOS system disk. Replace the DOS disk with the storage manager. And invoke the storage manager using the command:

a:\ dptmgr

Wait a minute or so, and you'll get a nice menu of options. Configure the set of disks as a hardware RAID (single logical array). Choose "other" as the operating system.

The MS-DOS storage manager is a lot easier to use with a mouse, and so you might want to have a mouse driver on the initial system disk you create.

Technically, it should be possible to run the SCO storage manager under Linux, but it may be more trouble than its worth. It's probably more easier to run the MS-DOS storage manager under Linux.

4.2 Configuring the kernel

You will need to configure the kernel with SCSI support and the appropriate low level driver. See the Kernel HOWTO for information on how to compile the kernel. Once you choose "yes" for SCSI support, in the low level drivers section, select the driver of your choice (EATA DMA or EATA ISA/EISA/PCI for most EATA DMA compliant (DPT) cards, EATA PIO for the very old PM2001 and PM2012A from DPT). Most drivers, including the EATA DMA and EATA ISA/EISA/PCI drivers, should be available in recent kernel versions.

Once you have the kernel compiled, reboot, and if you've set up everything correctly, you should see the driver recognising the RAID as a single SCSI disk. If you use RAID-5, you will see the size of this disk to be 2/3 of the actual disk space available.

4.3 Bootup messages

The messages you see upon bootup if you're using the EATA DMA driver should look something like this:

EATA (Extended Attachment) driver version: 2.59b
developed in co-operation with DPT
(c) 1993-96 Michael Neuffer, mike@i-Connect.Net
Registered HBAs:
HBA no. Boardtype    Revis  EATA Bus  BaseIO IRQ DMA Ch ID Pr QS  S/G IS
scsi0 : PM2144UW     v07L.Y 2.0c PCI  0xef90  11 BMST 1  7  N  64 252 Y
scsi0 : EATA (Extended Attachment) HBA driver
scsi : 1 host.
  Vendor: DPT       Model: RAID-5            Rev: 07LY
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 8, lun 0
scsi0: queue depth for target 8 on channel 0 set to 64
scsi : detected 1 SCSI disk total.
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 35591040 [17378 MB] [17.4 GB]

(The above display is for a setup with a single DPT SCSI controller, configured as RAID-5, with three disks of 9 GB each.)

The messages you see upon bootup if you're using the EATA ISA/EISA/PCI driver should look something like this:

aic7xxx: <Adaptec AHA-294X SCSI host adapter> at PCI 15
aic7xxx: BIOS enabled, IO Port 0x7000, IO Mem 0x3100000, IRQ 15, Revision B
aic7xxx: Single Channel, SCSI ID 7, 16/16 SCBs, QFull 16, QMask 0x1f
EATA0: address 0x7010 in use, skipping probe.
EATA0: 2.0C, PCI 0x7410, IRQ 11, BMST, SG 252, MB 64, tc:y, lc:y, mq:62.
EATA0: wide SCSI support enabled, max_id 16, max_lun 8.
EATA0: SCSI channel 0 enabled, host target ID 6.
EATA/DMA 2.0x: Copyright (C) 1994-1997 Dario Ballabio.
scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 4.1.1/3.2.1
scsi1 : EATA/DMA 2.0x rev. 3.11.00 
scsi : 2 hosts.
scsi0: Scanning channel A for devices.
  Vendor: IBM OEM   Model: DFHSS2F           Rev: 1818
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
  Vendor: SEAGATE   Model: ST41650       TX  Rev: DG01
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi disk sdb at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
  Vendor: TEAC      Model: FC-1     GF   00  Rev: RV L
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 01 CCS
Detected scsi removable disk sdc at scsi1, channel 0, id 3, lun 0
  Vendor: SONY      Model: CD-ROM CDU-541    Rev: 2.6a
  Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 5, lun 0
EATA0: scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, cmds/lun 21, sorted, tagged.
EATA0: scsi1, channel 0, id 3, lun 0, cmds/lun 21, sorted.
EATA0: scsi1, channel 0, id 5, lun 0, cmds/lun 21, sorted.
scsi : detected 1 SCSI cdrom 3 SCSI disks total.
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 4404489 [2150 MB] [2.2 GB]
SCSI device sdb: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 2779518 [1357 MB] [1.4 GB]
SCSI device sdc: hdwr sector= 256 bytes. Sectors= 4160 [1 MB] [0.0 GB]

(The above display is for a setup with two SCSI controllers, DPT PM3224W and and Adaptec AHA2940.)