Re: Anthony's drive issues.Re: ssh password delay

From: Anthony Atkielski (atkielski.anthony_at_wanadoo.fr)
Date: 03/29/05

  • Next message: Brian John: "how to find files less than a day old?" 
    Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:01:46 +0200
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org

    Ted Mittelstaedt writes:

    > He is saying that the microcode was modified and that we speculate that
    > the mods contain a bug proprietary to the HP implementation of that
    > controller.

    What makes it a _bug_? Why would the modified firmware contain a bug
    ... but not FreeBSD?

    > Or had whatever extra code was needed for the microcode mods.

    Yes, or approached the hardware in a way that made the modifications
    irrelevant.

    > Yes, they do - I've got a Compaq professional workstation on my desk
    > at work which has a modded microcode in an Adaptec 2940U adapter card
    > (I know it's modded because the card will not work in any other
    > non-Compaq system, even where non-Compaq-branded 2940U cards will
    > work) that displays similar disk strangeness (although it doesen't
    > spew errors) This is the same scsi chipset as Anthonys Vectra.
    > (aic7880)

    And what does Compaq give you in exchange for the headache of a
    non-standard adapter card?

    Can you replace Compaq's distorted adapter with a standard one, or is it
    theirs or nothing?

    > This incidentally is WHY I am speculating it's a microcode mod (and it
    > was I that started this line of discussion regarding the microcode on
    > his SCSI chipset) because I have proof positive that modded microcode
    > in other manufacturer's aic7880-based SCSI adapters has problems with
    > the ahc driver.

    How did you resolve the problem?

    > He doesen't want to run Windows (on this system at least)

    Correct. It's a more or less spare system and I'm more interesting in
    getting more experience with UNIX than with getting more experience with
    Windows. I already know plenty about Windows.

    > He wants the FreeBSD ahc driver modded so that it won't generate
    > errors and SCSI bus resets anymore under FreeBSD.

    That would be nice, if it's a legitimate bug in the FreeBSD code (which
    I suspect it is). If it's a regression (i.e., a change that would break
    the behavior with standard hardware), then the utility of changing it is
    debatable (although I still wouldn't object to a version that would run
    on my hardware).

    In any case, this wonderfully fun experience is pushing me more and more
    in the direction of home-built hardware, and further and further away
    from brand-name machines. I'm glad I decided to build my own server
    instead of buying that IBM eSeries machine. Who knows what problems I
    might have had with it?

    > Unfortunately, Anthony won't do the least bit of troubleshooting (such
    > as pulling the Quantum disk and just running on the Seagate disk in
    > this system to see if perhaps the problem is execerbated by one or the
    > other implementations of SCSI in one or the other of the disks -
    > granted that is a long shot, but it's within the realm of possibility
    > it might fix it) so I doubt he would do anything that the ahc driver
    > (who most likely isn't even subscribed to freebsd-questions) tells him
    > to do in the way of troubleshooting either.

    Anything isn't going to do anything until someone can tell him what the
    existing messages are saying. I don't go pulling boards every time I
    see a message that I don't recognize.

    > Also long forgotten in this discussion is Anthony stated once on this
    > list that Mandrake Linux wouldn't even install on this Vectra system
    > either.

    It stops after the splash screen, but I think that is related to the
    same problem that prevents FreeBSD from booting directly from disk.

    > I am not sure why he's trying to hold FreeBSD up to the driver support
    > of Windows NT when Linux won't even talk to the card in his system.

    I don't know what Linux will or won't do, and unlike you, I'm not
    prepared to make wild guesses. I know only that Mandrake Linux will
    stall after displaying a splash screen, and that's that.

    > ... and we all know that Windows has far better support for the
    > oddest-ballist modifications of standard computer components such as
    > SCSI adapters than FreeBSD does since they have unlimited money to buy
    > oddball samples of hardware to experiment with ...

    I suspect they just ask the vendor for information on the hardware.
    Even Microsoft has neither the time nor the money to test every
    conceivable hardware configuration.

    A more likely scenario is that the vendor itself writes the driver and
    then has Microsoft certify it. The certification is pretty rudimentary,
    IIRC; essentially MS ensures that the system doesn't melt or spew acrid
    smoke when the driver is invoked and that's about it. 

    -- 
Anthony
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