HP hardware supported by Linux

The latest version of XFree86 is the 3.3.6, available from our mirror.

The latest version of the ncr53c8xx driver is available from the reference site.

The latest version of the 3c59x driver is available from the reference site.

The latest version of the AD1816 driver is available from the reference site.

These models are delivered with MS-DOS only, in order to have a Linux Machine at the best price.

To use the MGA G100 AGP card, with a version of XFree86 before the 3.3.2 one, you have to use an option in the file XF86Config : Option "no_accel".

Section example :

Section "Device"
[...]
      VendorName "Matrox"
      VideoRam 4096
      Option "no_accel"
EndSection

This card is only supported from the 3.3.6 version of XFree86. Nevertheless, even in that version, this is a preliminary support, which isn't as stable as the Frame Buffer mode.

On the other hand, to be able to install a RedHat 6.1 version, you should do that in text mode, because the server provided (3.3.5) doesn't support this card.

(Informations provided by Frédéric Dubuy <Frederic.Dubuy@medasys-digital-systems.fr> and Anne-Marie Mahfouf <a-m.mahfouf@lineone.net>)

This card is only supported with a specific X server XFCom_i810 downloadable in both format RPM or tar.gz and a complementary module for the kernel agpgart, downloadable in both format SRPM or tar.gz.

A detailed documentation on the installation is provided at http://www.linux-france.org/article/x/GuideIntel810/book1.html

To summarize, once the X server installed, the module compiled and installed, it's sufficient to modify with the following parameters the file /etc/X11/XF86Config :

Section "Device"
[...]
      Identifier "i810"
[...]
EndSection

[...]
Section "Screen"
[...]
      Driver "svga"
      Device "i810"
[...]
EndSection

On that machine, the Bios doesn't give the right amount of memory which is in the machine to Linux. You need to use a line such as append="mem=xxxM" at the begining of /etc/lilo.conf where xxx is your RAM in MB.

In order to use the native SCSI controler you need to disable in the Bios the option "Reserve PCI Bus Numbers", in the menu PCI Device Setting. (Indication of GILLYNN COUCH)

In order to use the native SCSI controler you need to desactivate in the Bios the "reserver PCI Bus #s", in the menu PCI Device Setting. The PS/2 system doesn't seem to be operational on the machine we tested. On the other side, through the network, the system is perfectly operational in a 6-processors mode :-)

Intel BX Chipset (Memory Bus at 100 MHz) is supported by kernels above 2.0.34/2.1.103.

Coppermine 0.18 µm technology - 256 KB synchronous cache - Intel i820 Chipset

Attention, the XF86_SVGA server works correctly with this mother board embedded version only above XFree86 3.3.5, due to the use of different frequencies (In particular, use the updates for RedHat 5.2/6.0).

To use the FrameBuffer mode, please consult the following documents http://www.medasys-digital-systems.fr/linux/framebuffer.html and http://www.medasys-digital-systems.fr/mirror/linux/LDP/HOWTO/Framebuffer-HOWTO.html.

Creation of a custom RedHat Boot disk

To be able to boot with the RedHat 5.1 boot disk, and to have the support of the 3C905B-TX card, you need to do the following :

# Log as root. Go in the home directory  (~root)
#cd ~
# Put there the 3c59x.c source module for the 3Com card
#ncftp ftp://ftp.medasys-digital-systems.fr/pub/linux/networking/drivers/3c59x.c
# Compile it
#gcc -DMODULE -D__KERNEL__ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O6 -c 3c59x.c `[ -f /usr/include/linux/modversions.h ] && echo -DMODVERSIONS`
# put the RedHat 5.1 floppy boot disk in the drive
# you have to copy the initrd.img file from the floppy disk  
#mcopy a:initrd.img /tmp
# then uncompress it  
#gzip -cd /tmp/initrd.img > /tmp/initrd.ext2
# Mount the "file" filesystem thus obtained  
#mount -t ext2 /tmp/initrd.ext2 /mnt/floppy -o loop
# uncompress the modules provided  
#gzip -cd /mnt/floppy/modules/modules.cgz > /tmp/modules.cpio
# extract the modules  
#cd /tmp ; mkdir modules ; 
cd modules ; cat /tmp/modules.cpio | cpio -i
# Copy the new updated module for the 3Com card  
#cp ~/3c59x.o .
# recreate the compressed cpio file  
#ls | cpio -o | gzip -c9 > ../newmodules.cgz
# replace the modules by their update  
#cp ../newmodules.cgz /mnt/floppy/modules/modules.cgz
# unmount the "file" filesystem  
#umount /mnt/floppy
# compress the "file" filesystem  
#gzip -c9 /tmp/initrd.ext2 > /tmp/initrd.img
# copy it on the floppy disk  
#mcopy /tmp/initrd.img a:

To use a Cirrus Logic GD 5465 AGP card, with a version below Xfree86 3.3.3, you have to use an option in the file XF86Config : Option "xaa_no_color_exp".

Section example :

Section "Device"
[...]
       Identifier "CL-GD5465"
       VendorName "Cirrus"
       BoardName  "GD5465"
       VideoRam   2048
       Option     "xaa_no_color_exp"
EndSection

Specifications of that card should be consulted on Elsa web site. This card is equiped with an hardware OpenGL accelerator. Under Linux, there is an OpenGL compatible layer called Mesa. This layer begins to support hardware accelerators, and among them the 3DLabs chipset which is on Elsa Gloria cards.

• Elsa web site

• OpenGL web site

• Mesa web site

To use the D6692A card, you need to use a 2.1.122 kernel at least. Previous kernels didn't handled correctly the shared IRQ between the network and SCSI parts of the card. In particular, a standard RedHat 5.2 version doesn't allow to the network part to be supported. You have to update your kernel with a recent one (preferably 2.2.14) and the distribution with the complementary packages needed.

To use a High Availability Custer under Linux, you need to use additional software, such as :

• RSF-1 (Commercial)

• Linux-HA project (free) and ext3

The LH4 doesn't seem to work correctly when not in Raid. Even with the latest Bios available at the time of the test (16.00), the problem remains. If you desactivate the Raid management, during the boot, the ncr53c8xx driver in Linux detects 4 controlers instead of 2 and boot doesn't end. To avoid that, you have to activate the Raid in the Bios and use each of the disk in Raid0 mode, which is quite the same as the solution without Raid at all.

These cards are equiped with an AMI Megaraid chipset and may support the following Raid levels : 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 30 and 50. Some NetRaid cards, as well as the chipset integrated on the LH3 and LH4 mother boards are supported by recent version of the Linux kernel (2.0.36/2.2.14 typically - don't use 2.0.37/38).

For the RedHat 5.2 distribution, it's not possible to install the system on this type of controler, because it's not detected by the installation program. You have to use a specific floppy disk . This floppy disk should be used as input to the rawrite tool, for example. It works for systems with less than 1 GB of memory.

For the RedHat 6.0 distribution, you have to manually declare the existence of this card as a supplementary SCSI adapter, in order to use it directly during the installation. The megaraid driver isn't automatically detected.

To avoid strange messages during the boot printed by the megaraid driver, it's necessary to recompile it with the option -DHP.

For the RedHat 6.1 distribution, the megaraid driver provided by the kernel does support on ly the first logical drive. In order to obtain the others, please recompile a 2.2.14 standard kernel.

You have to note that the integrated card of the LH3/4 realises a software parity checks and performs thus less efficiently than the NetRaid daughter cards. On the other side, LH6000 are equiped with an integrated card doing hardware checks.