[Gllug] Gentoo & Booting from SATA disk

[Nick Warrington]

For the sake of a little closure.

I recompiled the kernel with the VIA SATA scsi module compiled in, changed
fstab to reference sda instead of hde, tweaked grub.conf and rebooted. It
just worked.

Smashin'

I slept last night at long last.

Thanks Andrew, quality of life upgrade complete ;)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nick Warrington 
> [mailto:nick.warrington at automationpartnership.com]
> Sent: 18 November 2004 11:33
> To: 'Greater London Linux Users Group'
> Subject: RE: [Gllug] Gentoo & Booting from SATA disk
> 
> 
> Thanks for the prompt reply Andrew,
>  
> > It won't.
> > libata makes sata disks look like scsi.
> > So you should be getting /dev/sda1.
> 
> Makes sense, which is preferable to use?
> 
> > 
> > Also. (and this is important)...
> > How is the module loaded at boot time? If you have no initrd 
> > file, then
> > there is no way for the kernel to mount the partition on the 
> > disk in order
> > to load the kernel module needed to see the disk with the 
> > partition on it,
> > to mount it.
> 
> 
> The genkernel command in gentoo builds a kernel and initrd 
> file. I assume
> that its the initrd file I'm browsing around when I get a 
> shell half way
> through the kernel booting, so I think I can assume that Grub 
> has provided
> the initrd file for the kernel, without the kernel having to 
> mount anything.
> 
> 
> > It sounds to me like the standard "Eeek, i can't boot!" 
> > "That's because you
> > need the module in an initial ram disk at boot time" problem.
> > 
> > > Perhaps I should try and compile in the ide_disk module. I 
> > did look. The
> > > only options that seemed plausable was the 
> > CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK option.
> > > Compiling it in didn't seem to make a difference.
> > 
> > ide-disk (and all other relevant ide things for your 
> > motherboard) should
> > ideally be compiled into the kernel really, as should sata 
> if you know
> > you're going to be using sata, and any other modules needed 
> > at boot time.
> > The initrd method is valid, but it's mainly used in 
> > distributions when they
> > don't know exactly what hardware and filesystem 
> > configurations people will
> > use. Gentoo is obviously a bit different from other distros 
> > because it's a
> > roll your own type thing.
> > 
> 
> I'd love to compile in the options if I new which ones they were.
> 
> > If libata is available (2.6 kernel? or patched 2.4?) then 
> > libata is the way
> > to go with it. Remember though. SATA+libata=scsi disk as far 
> > as the kernel's
> > concerned.
> 
> 2.6.9 kernel although I those clever gentoo chaps claim to 
> have bitched
> around with it for stability reasons on the Amd64. Why is 
> libata the way to
> go? Why not ide-disk. Is it slower/obsolete?
> 
> > 
> > > Not sure where to go from here?
> > > Also can anyone shed any light on the different SATA 
> > modules and what
> > > they're all for?
> > 
> > Type lspci. This lists everything on your pci bus, and should 
> > give you a
> > hint as to the SATA/IDE chipset. If it shows intel for 
> > example, you won't be
> > needing promise, sis, nvidia or via.
> 
> I'm pretty sure the entire chipset is via, but I will try 
> this when I get
> home. 
> 
> Thanks for the help.
> 
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