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martieng

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Linux Setup question


I am new to Linux and am currently attempting to install the Debian
1.2.17 Linux Distribution.
I have successfully written the floppy disks and installed the base
system. My problem is with the detection of my Pro Audio Spectrum 16 SCSI
controller (= sound card) and the CDROM drive.
I have used as a bootprompt: "pas16=0x388,irq", with all possible values
for irq filledd in.
Each time I get abortion of commands, e.g. a line which says:
scsi0: command aborted or: scsi0: disconnected_queue.

In the linux SCSI HOWTO under section 5.15 PAS16 SCSI (Standard) I read

Common Problems:

Command timeouts, aborts, etc.

You should install the NCR5380 patches that I posted to the net some time
ago, which should be integrated into some future alpha release. These
patches fix a race condition in earlier NCR5380 driver cores, as well as
fixing support for multiple devices on NCR5380 based boards.

If that fails, you should disable the PSEUDO_DMA option by changing the
#define PSEUDO_DMA line in drivers/scsi/pas16.c to #undef PSEUDO_DMA.

Note that the later should be considered a last resort, because there
will be a severe performance degradation.

End of quote from SCSCI HOWTO.

My problem is that even if I knew where to find the patch which is
mentioned, that I do not have anything installed apart from the base
system. The packages like the GNU CC compiler, are still unavailable to
me, because they are on the CDROM which has not correctly been detected.

Please help me! I think what I need is for someone who is maintaining the
Debian releases, to incorporate the above mentioned patch in the kernel
or other part of the base system. Then a new floppy image needs to be
produced, I don't know whether this would be a new version of the rescue
floppy, i.e. file rsc1440.bin, or one of the base floppies. If I can
download this new floppy image I will be able to write it to a floppy
using rawrite2, and then I can do the installation again, starting with
the rescue floppy.

From all the information which I have read in my Media Vision Double
Fusion LX sound card + cdrom drive manual and the information in the
CDROM HOWTO, the bootprompt HOWTO and the SCSI HOWTO, I feel sure that I
should use the bootprompt pas16=0x388,irq and not any other of the
bootprompts which are described for other controllers and CDROM drives.

I would appreciate it very much if I could hear in the near future that a
new version of one of the floppy images have been produced, which would
solve the detection of the CDROM.

My next question is: Which of the Device Driver Modules in the
installation setup should I  configure? I have so far had no success in
configuring any of them.

Last question: in the dselect /access step for installing from a CDROM I
am asked to mention the block device driver. I have tried all kinds of
things, such as /dev/sbpcd0, /dev/sjcd /dev/scd0 etc, but nothing has
worked so far. What should I enter here, assuming that my CDROM has been
correctly detected through the bootprompt?

I hope I will soon be able to continue the installation of my new Debian
Linux distribution!

Yours,

Martien de Groot
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