Damn Small Linux - Not!

[IDC]Dragon · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 41 Location: Hannover, Germany

I'm having two issues with SATA on my Via Epia EN15000 home server:

1) When cold starting, the drive is not detected by DSL-N. (message "ata1 failed to respond (30 secs)" in front of the Welcome To DSL banner.) It requires me to do a reboot, the second time it works. No good for a headless system. I'm not 100% sure if it's always and only failing the cold boot, but right now after some testing it seems so.

2) I'd very much like to configure the drive for idle spindown, but hdparm fails on it. Google teached me that we either need the ATA passthru patch from Jeff Garzik, or a kernel from 2.6.15 on which includes that. Is there any chance to update this? Would suit nicely on DSL-Ns goal to support newer hardware.

Thanks for replies,
Jörg (who just donated)

[IDC]Dragon · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 41 Location: Hannover, Germany

an update to my item 2) :

I managed to workaround this, by using Kanotix (another LiveCD project based on Knoppix). It has a kernel 2.6.16 something, and hdparm -S xxx /dev/sda works. The drive fortunately persists the setting, so it's still spinning down when using DSL-N.

Edit: false positive alert, the setting only survives a warm restart, not a cold boot. Grr! My showstopper 2) still exists, I spent days, if not weeks, of evening tinkering into DLS-N. Now it appears to be the "wrong horse". (Sorry for being bitter.)

Why does the kernel of DSL-N have to be so old? (RobertS said it's based on Knoppix 3.9, while Knoppix itself is version 5 now.)
Is it possible for me noob user to exchange the DSL-N kernel with the Kanotix kernel? Or if it has to be this kernel, would it be practical to apply the ATA passtrough patch?
[url]http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=b095518ef51c37658c58367bd19240b8a113f25c[/url]

Nevermind,
Jörg

fos · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 30 Location: Texas

Hi Dragon,

Where did you purchase your EN1500?

Will it fit in a Casetronic 3688 case?

Thanks,
fos...

[IDC]Dragon · Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 41 Location: Hannover, Germany

@fos:
I'm from germany (profile now updated), got it from [url]www.mini-itx.de[/url]. They sold a couple of sample kits in April, and Via wasn't happy about it. End user "rollout" for germany is planned for June.

I don't know your Casetronic case. The EN15000 is a Mini-ITX form factor, height just flat enough to fit in my 1U 19" case.

Jörg

fos · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 30 Location: Texas

Thanks for the info Jorg,

I haven't seen any available here in the states. Maybe they will become available in June. No date has been announced.

The Casetronic case is a very small unit designed for the Mini-ITX format. They sell them here in the DSlL Store. I purchased mine here for an M10000n based system, it is very nice. You might consider it for a project sometime.

Jeff