Loading Red Hat 7.3 on an Lx-Pro

[Steven Lesniak_1]

We recently upgraded out hardware and DB software along with moving from SCO unix to Red Hat. After the move we were left with a rather well configured Lx-Pro that would make a fine test box. The problem is that I cannot get Red Hat 7.3 to load. I was able to load an extra copy of UnixWare 711 on the box, but RH 7.3, no go.

Even though RH doesn't support 7.3, our ERP vendor has it certified for the version we are running. To keep things in sync I need to have both boxes running 7.3. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions to get this thing going?

TIA,

Steven

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello Steven,

can you be a bit more specific as to where in the installation Redhat fails? I think this will greatly improve your chances of getting a good answer ;-)

Greetings, Martin

[Steven Lesniak_1]

Sorry about that...

Regardless of which install method I choose at the boot: prompt, either text, graphic or linux dd it ends in the same spot.

After going through various steps that fly by too fast to record it reports:
md: Auto detecting RAID Arrays
md: autorun done

then it goes through the Protocol section and then...

RAMDISK: Compress image found at block 0
crc error<6> freeing initrd memory 1976k freed
Ext2-fs: unable to read superblock
cramfs: wrong magic
FAT: unalbe to read boot sector
isofs_read_super: bread faild, dev=09:00, iso_blknum=16, block=32
kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 09:00

The box has a NetRAID-3si card in it if that helps any.

Steven

[Stuart Browne]

There's an existing filesystem on the container isn't there?

If you don't need the data, wipe it.

[Steven E. Protter]

I'd first suggest a supported version of Red Hat. AS 2.1 release three is based on RH 7.3 but is updated and may support the hardware better.

Or since its a test box, Fedora Core 1, Red Hat 9, lots of good choices. I could use a little more detail about your hardware. I'm not familiar with what an Lx-Pro is.

The good news is Unixware works, chances are, more useful distributions will work as well.

SEP

[Steven Lesniak_1]

I'll answer two e-mails in one.

The boot disk does have a filesystem on it now (UnixWare) but it didn't the first few times I tried to load Red Hat.

The Lx-pro is setup as follows:

Dual Pentium Pro 200 processors
1 GB Ram
Netraid 3si with the two hot swap drive cages split between two channels of the controller.
The 6 drives are a mix of 4GB and 9 GB drives if a variety of stripe sets mirrored to the other cage. The logical drives are 18GB (id 0), 9GB, 8GB and 4GB

HTH

Steven

[Stuart Browne]

The 3si is an MegaRAID series of controller, so driver wise, you are set with any RH from 6 onwards (tried and tested by myself!).

It may have issues with the Unixware file system already on the existing containers.

Try initilizing both containers (i.e. wipe-them-entirely) and trying it again. To do this, go into the RAID bios (CTRL-M at bootup, from memory), Objects, Logical, Initialize. Space twice to select both containers, then let it rip!

Once that completes (shouldn't take too long), try loading the OS again. See if it comes up with the same error again.

[Diego Lista]

Try to boot with the megaraid.s kernel. to have support for the NetRaid 3si.
"NetRaid 3si" is for LVD Disk, isn't??
For SE Disks there is the "NetRaid"??

Or try to install Slackware 9.1, I've used it in many systems witout a problem.

[Steven Lesniak_1]

First thing I will try is to reinitialize all of the logical disks and try again.

as for booting with the megaraid.s kernel, I am not sure what I need to do to accomplish this. I rebuild custom kernels all the time, but always on a running system, not at load time from a CD.

As for LVD or SE I am not sure either; I would have to look at the docs. Again not something I have ever had to worry about.

Slackware 9.1? I've played with Slackware in the past and will go that route if I have to but keeping the same OS as my Production box is rather important.

Steven

[Steven E. Protter]

Which brings to mind the larger question of why production is on an unsupported version of Red Hat.

Perhaps now is the time to put the test box on the next version of the OS so you can plan and test an upgrade.

SEP

[Steven Lesniak_1]

Greetings all,

Well, I have Red Hat running on my Lx-Pro! It took a little effort, but in the end I have RH 8 loaded using the NETRAID-3si, which is my preferred card.

My new problem(s) are all tied to the same issue, UPDATES. While I generally do not use the GUI interface very often, there are a few times it comes in handy and I cannot manage to get the X server configured properly. This leads to the possible culprit being this is a stock install and not all of the proper packages were loaded or are of an older version.

I will admit that I was spoiled by RH's Up2date tool in gnome and find myself having problem getting all of the necessary packages loaded, and then updated. I have located a few mirror sites that have all of the required rpm files, but which ones do I need?

So the new problem/question is; does someone have a script I could use to bring my packages up to date? I have fiddled with *rpm* and the ftp option with hit and miss results.

Thanks,

Steven

[Stuart Browne]

up2date runs from the command line in an X-less environment. Why not just use that?