On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Barbara J Wagreich wrote: > i'm having a new PC custom built for me. It already has DOS, > Window s98, and Windows 2000 installed on it. It is a 2GHZ > Pentium 4 machine using an ABIT motherboard. Wow. Way overpowered for Linux, especially when used in text mode, probably with no GUI. > I just received this message from the person who is building it > for me: > > I've run into a problem with Linux. Linux does not appear to > support the IDE RAID controller, at least for booting. The IDE Refer him to the RAID tutorial in the Red Hat 6.2 and later manuals, and have him grep the /var/log/dmesg file (log of boot messages) for "RAID": On my system: grep -i RAID /var/log/dmesg raid5: measuring checksumming speed raid5: MMX detected, trying high-speed MMX checksum routines autodetecting RAID arrays > RAID controller does not support CD-ROMs or ZIP drives. The > only way around this seems to be moving the hard drive to the > main IDE controller in parallel with one of the other drives, > but this is undesirable for performance reasons. An > alternative would be to install a second hard drive just for > Linux (it would still result in reduced performance for that > drive). Windoze (XP?) GUI thinking. You will have more than ample power for linux, even if he goes with this dubious claim. So are you doing something that requires great hard drive performance? Like serving dynamic web pages from a database over a T1 or better line? Doesn't sound like it from the context. Bet any difference wouldn't even be noticed. > Any comments on this? Is it possible to install Red Hat Linux 7.2 > sothat the mail IDE controller is not used? Are there any other > recommended solutions? Has this person even tried to install linux on the RAID thing? Linux has had RAID support for a long time -- but why would you need it (just asking if you really need the hassle, when starting out with linux)? I'm guessing very few users here use it for personal systems, but I may be wrong. > this person feels it would be better to install linux on an > older machine by itself. I don't really have room for the > machine. It is a 7-year old machine and has the original > Pentium chip with a speed of 100mhz. The current disk drive is > a small 2GB SCSI disk and we would probably ahve to get an IDE > disk. I was hoping to have all three operating systems ont he > same machine tos ave space. Sure. You should be able to have it either way. I don't do RAID, but there are experienced sysadmins for largish networks on this list that no doubt use it routinely. Sorry if I sound irritated. Some of us get sick of seeing articles by supposed experts who claim linux can't to this or that, when it has been doing them for years. Your helper probably doesn't deserve it -- not claiming linux expertise. BTW, if you insist on installing the old RH7.2, you will still need to download hundreds of megabytes of patches from the updates directories, to keep your system secure on the internet. The active open source style security auditing going on now is adding new patches to the list regularly. Check and compare the volume in the updates directories for the two versions on the Red Hat site: you may find it's just easier to go with the newer version. Running old versions is OK (I do it), as long as you subscribe to the redhat-announce list and keep up to date on the security patches, as they come out. Would you like to know where to get RedHat (TM) "compatible" CDs with all the patches currently added (Krud linux)? LCR -- L. C. Robinson reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and instability instead. This is award winning "innovation". Find out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see "CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html