Subject: Re: AS1200 and 53c875 SCSI controller
To: None <port-alpha@netbsd.org>
From: Jochen Kunz <jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
List: port-alpha
Date: 12/22/2005 19:51:11
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 10:27:49 +0000
Steve Kirk <steve@unixnation.net> wrote:

> Can anyone give me some guidance on bootable SCSI raid controllers for
> an AS1200?
There are some variants of Mylex cards what SRM knows about and are
supported by NetBSD. See mlx(4).

> 1) I've seen an LSI 8751SP SCSI card for sale.
> This uses the NCR/Symbios 53c875(SP I think) - would I be able to boot
> from this card?
Usually the cards based on the 53c875 Just Work (C) (R) (TM).
But they don't do RAID (in hardware).

> I see from the archives that there were problems with 53c875 based
> controllers.
I used various Symbios adapters, most based on the 53c875, in various
Alphas and had never any problems.

> 2) If I can't boot off this card, is it possible to adapt the cdhdtape
> image and boot the system off a cd-rom, to the point where enough of
> the system is up to load the driver for the Adaptec controller card?
Sure. You can boot from the CD. Either use boot flags to make the kernel
ask what device to mount as / or prepare a CD with a self build kernel,
that has sd0a or what ever configured as /. (The boot flag is "-a" on
other architectures, but "-a" is reserved for "autoboot" on Alpha. I
don't know what MD flag port-alpha uses instead.)
--=20


tsch=FC=DF,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/