[nzlug] linux on Compaq Evo T20

[Warren Boyd]

On 2006/Nov/24, at 08:41 , Karl. wrote:

> I'm trying to get linux to recognise the internal drive (flash) in a
> Compaq Evo T20.
>
> The machine was built to be a thin client (it's reputedly a re-badged
> Wyse 8235LE).  It has a Geode GX1 processor at 300MHz (vaguely
> equivalent to a Pentium Classic at 200MHz).
>
> I'm running Damn Small Linux (DSL) booting via a patched version of
> grub installed in the internal flash (praise be to Dag Sverre  
> Seljebotn
> at http://www.kazak.ws/evo/).  I have grub stage1 and stage2 at the
> beginning of the drive, and a single fat16 partition containing the  
> DSL
> kernel and initrd (and all the rest of the DSL files).  I created the
> fat filesystem with a large number of reserved blocks so that there is
> space for grub stage2 at the beginning of the drive (I tried to get
> stage1.5 to work but didn't get anywhere).
>
> Grub is set with root hd0,0 and starts DSL just fine, loading kernel
> and initrd from the fat partition.  DSL then starts looking for its
> cloop file.  It can't see the copy on hda1 at all (even though the
> kernel and initrd just loaded from there).  I can loop-mount the
> partition image on another machine and the fat filesystem seems fine
> (that's how I got the DSL files onto it).
>

IIRC - The kernel is loaded via the boot loader - in this case grub,  
so to
get your kernel up and running, grub needs to be able to find it - so  
far,
so good.  Next - is initrd, and, unless I've very mistaken[0] - this  
is pointed
from grub as well.

So - that leaves the possibility that the kernel cannot see the drive  
itself -
which I would assume is due to missing module / driver in the kernel  
itself.

> If I have my usb drive plugged in then DSL finds that and continues to
> boot.  Once booted, it still can't see hda1.  The ide interface does
> appear in lspci's output.

Hrmmm - sounds very much like there's something not quite right with  
the drive,
either the kernel not detecting it, or something strange about the  
drive itself.


>
> Booting off USB is almost an acceptable solution for me, but it  
> would be
> nice if I could get it booting completely from internal memory (I only
> have one surplus flash drive and have got 4 T20's - I know that flash
> drives are cheap, but I don't like spending money on something that
> shouldn't be necessary)

As an alternative - how about booting off the network?  I used to do  
that
for an old P150 when I stripped out the hard drive (I wanted a silent
machine) ... and by the sounds of it, you could put etherboot on the  
machine
itself?

>
> What can I try to get the internal flash recognised?
> Parts of dmesg attached below...
>
>
> Karl.
>
>
> ======
> CPU0: NSC Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by National Semi stepping 02
> per-CPU timeslice cutoff: 45.71 usecs.
> SMP motherboard not detected.
> Local APIC not detected. Using dummy APIC emulation.
> Waiting on wait_init_idle (map = 0x0)
> All processors have done init_idle
> ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040326
> ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
> PCI: Using configuration type 1
> PCI: Probing PCI hardware
> PCI: ACPI tables contain no PCI IRQ routing entries
> PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
> PCI: Fixup for MediaGX/Geode Slave Disconnect Boundary (0x41=0x9c)
> isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
> isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
>
> ...SNIP...
>
> Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
> ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with
> idebus=xx
> CS5530: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:12.2
> CS5530: chipset revision 0
> CS5530: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
> PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:12.0 to 64
>     ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfb00-0xfb07, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio
>     ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfb08-0xfb0f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio


===========================================
> hda: C/H/S=27881/83/162 from BIOS ignored
> hdb: C/H/S=0/0/0 from BIOS ignored
===========================================

This is what worries me - these tell me the BIOS details are ignored -
but I cannot see any further detail about the drives?

I would suggest that there is something in there that needs to be set  
for
the flash drive to be recognised.


Good luck,
Warren.

0 - Which has happened in the past ;-)