Aralion and IDE blasphemy

Aralion and IDE blasphemy

[J.P. Morris]

This is probably approaching blasphemy, but has anyone ever considered
an emergency EIDE driver that uses the extended int13h calls?
I'm pretty sure there's a protected-mode BIOS interface in modern BIOSes
these days, so it shouldn't need to go down to real mode to make the
calls.

I have just purchased an IDE RAID controller to add tertiary and
quaternary IDE ports to my system for an extra CDROM drive.
I thought the days when you couldn't get Linux support for such things
were long gone, but sadly no.

The culprit is an ARALION ARS106S chipset card.  Interestingly it works
in DOS, and if the hard disks are attached to it, it will even boot
up to LILO, but then the kernel dies because it can't find the HDDs.
(On their web page message board, some guy asks for the specs but is
 helpfully pointed to an obsolete binary module for RedHat 7.1.)

If there was Linux support for BIOS-based EIDE controllers, it should
in theory work, if slowly.

Alternatively, can anyone suggest a cheap tertiary EIDE card suitable
for CDROM or hard disks that Linux can support?

-- 
JP Morris - aka DOUG the Eagle (Dragon) -=UDIC=-  jpm@it-he.org
Fun things to do with the Ultima games            http://www.it-he.org
Developing a U6/U7 clone                          http://ire.it-he.org
d+++ e+ N+ T++ Om U1234!56!7'!S'!8!9!KA u++ uC+++ uF+++ uG---- uLB----
uA--- nC+ nR---- nH+++ nP++ nI nPT nS nT wM- wC- y a(YEAR - 1976)

Re: Aralion and IDE blasphemy

[Alan Cox]

> This is probably approaching blasphemy, but has anyone ever considered
> an emergency EIDE driver that uses the extended int13h calls?

Its not worth the pain. It was done by Adam J Richter before 1.0 in
fact and is long dead

> I'm pretty sure there's a protected-mode BIOS interface in modern BIOSes
> these days, so it shouldn't need to go down to real mode to make the
> calls.

Not a useful one

> The culprit is an ARALION ARS106S chipset card.  Interestingly it works
> in DOS, and if the hard disks are attached to it, it will even boot

What does lspci say the chipset really is ?

Alan

Re: Aralion and IDE blasphemy

[Richard B. Johnson]

On Fri, 17 May 2002, J.P. Morris wrote:

> 
> This is probably approaching blasphemy, but has anyone ever considered
> an emergency EIDE driver that uses the extended int13h calls?
> I'm pretty sure there's a protected-mode BIOS interface in modern BIOSes
> these days, so it shouldn't need to go down to real mode to make the
> calls.
> 
> I have just purchased an IDE RAID controller to add tertiary and
> quaternary IDE ports to my system for an extra CDROM drive.
> I thought the days when you couldn't get Linux support for such things
> were long gone, but sadly no.
> 
> The culprit is an ARALION ARS106S chipset card.  Interestingly it works
> in DOS, and if the hard disks are attached to it, it will even boot
> up to LILO, but then the kernel dies because it can't find the HDDs.
> (On their web page message board, some guy asks for the specs but is
>  helpfully pointed to an obsolete binary module for RedHat 7.1.)
> 
> If there was Linux support for BIOS-based EIDE controllers, it should
> in theory work, if slowly.
> 
> Alternatively, can anyone suggest a cheap tertiary EIDE card suitable
> for CDROM or hard disks that Linux can support?


Just install Linux from a current distribution, i.e., like
RedHat (not an Add, just came-to mind because I don't know
how to spell Suse and/or whatever..). The drivers for IDE/EIDE/RAID
are in their installation kernels. If you are trying to build a kernel
to support EIDE, the problem is figuring out what questions to answer
during configuration. The major distributors have already figured that
out.

You can't do 'BIOS-based' stuff in the kernel (although it's been tried
for what should be simple stuff like APM).

The BIOS code itself often makes assumptions about the environment
like it can plug its interrupt vector into the interrupt table and
enable its ISR.

There can't be, as you say, "a protected mode BIOS interface" for
the same reason nobody does general purpose surgery. Every
protected-mode system is different.

Also, when LILO boots, if it didn't get past Uncompressing, then
booting the kernel, it's NOT a lack of hard-disk support. You
probably have built the kernel for a processor you don't have.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.4.18 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).

                 Windows-2000/Professional isn't.

Re: Aralion and IDE blasphemy

[J.P. Morris]

On Fri, 17 May 2002 14:52:55 +0100 (BST)
Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:

> > The culprit is an ARALION ARS106S chipset card.  Interestingly it works
> > in DOS, and if the hard disks are attached to it, it will even boot
> 
> What does lspci say the chipset really is ?

Here's the entry for it from lspci -v.  I can quote the entire file if you prefer.

00:11.0 RAID bus controller: ARALION Inc: Unknown device 0301
        Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
        I/O ports at ac00 [size=16]
        I/O ports at b000 [size=16]
        I/O ports at b400 [size=16]
        I/O ports at b800 [size=16]
        I/O ports at bc00 [size=16]
        I/O ports at c000 [size=8]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 1


However.  I put the thing in to try and relieve a problem of drive bays and
connector lengths.  A bit of lateral thinking has provided another solution
and I no longer need the card urgently.

> 
> Alan
> 


-- 
JP Morris - aka DOUG the Eagle (Dragon) -=UDIC=-  jpm@it-he.org
Fun things to do with the Ultima games            http://www.it-he.org
Developing a U6/U7 clone                          http://ire.it-he.org
d+++ e+ N+ T++ Om U1234!56!7'!S'!8!9!KA u++ uC+++ uF+++ uG---- uLB----
uA--- nC+ nR---- nH+++ nP++ nI nPT nS nT wM- wC- y a(YEAR - 1976)

Re: Aralion and IDE blasphemy

[Alan Cox]

> > > The culprit is an ARALION ARS106S chipset card.  Interestingly it works
> > > in DOS, and if the hard disks are attached to it, it will even boot
> > 
> > What does lspci say the chipset really is ?
> 
> Here's the entry for it from lspci -v.  I can quote the entire file if you prefer.
> 
> 00:11.0 RAID bus controller: ARALION Inc: Unknown device 0301

Just the one controller shows up despite it being four ports ?

> However.  I put the thing in to try and relieve a problem of drive bays and
> connector lengths.  A bit of lateral thinking has provided another solution
> and I no longer need the card urgently.

Aralion claim Linux support so might be worth asking them ?
http://www.aralion.com/products/raidControl/ideRaid/ideRaid_ultimaRaid100.htm

Re: Aralion and IDE blasphemy

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <E178iAB-0006Xu-00@the-village.bc.nu>
By author:    Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> > This is probably approaching blasphemy, but has anyone ever considered
> > an emergency EIDE driver that uses the extended int13h calls?
> 
> Its not worth the pain. It was done by Adam J Richter before 1.0 in
> fact and is long dead
> 

Well, it was done by Ross Biro, who was working for Adam at the
time...

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt	<amsp@zytor.com>

Re: Aralion and IDE blasphemy

[J.P. Morris]

On Fri, 17 May 2002 20:22:19 +0100 (BST)
Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:

> > > What does lspci say the chipset really is ?
> > 
> > Here's the entry for it from lspci -v.  I can quote the entire file if you prefer.
> > 
> > 00:11.0 RAID bus controller: ARALION Inc: Unknown device 0301
> 
> Just the one controller shows up despite it being four ports ?

All the other entries are for hardware I know, so yes.

> > However.  I put the thing in to try and relieve a problem of drive bays and
> > connector lengths.  A bit of lateral thinking has provided another solution
> > and I no longer need the card urgently.
> 
> Aralion claim Linux support so might be worth asking them ?
> http://www.aralion.com/products/raidControl/ideRaid/ideRaid_ultimaRaid100.htm

What they will give you is a Windows program in korean.  Later examination
revealed it to be some kind of self-extracting ZIP file.

Inside are some binary kernel modules they wrote which are specific to RedHat
7.1's version 2.4.2 kernel.

They've just updated their Windows drivers, so they -may- release a more
recent version, but I'd prefer not to have a closed binary module present.


-- 
JP Morris - aka DOUG the Eagle (Dragon) -=UDIC=-  jpm@it-he.org
Fun things to do with the Ultima games            http://www.it-he.org
Developing a U6/U7 clone                          http://ire.it-he.org
d+++ e+ N+ T++ Om U1234!56!7'!S'!8!9!KA u++ uC+++ uF+++ uG---- uLB----
uA--- nC+ nR---- nH+++ nP++ nI nPT nS nT wM- wC- y a(YEAR - 1976)