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RedHat8.0

RedHat 8.0 on PIII 1 GHz

This PC is now running RedHat 9.0 now. Read below how I upgraded.

Index

How can I turn on the DMA for CDROM ?

RedHat 8 disables DMA as defaults. Therefore you must add the following linein /etc/modules.conf:

           
  options ide-cd dma=1

You can check whether dma is on (1) or not (0) in /proc/ide/hdc/settings if youbecome "su" (assuming that your CDROM/DVD drive is /dev/hdc):


	  name                    value           min             max             mode
	  ----                    -----           ---             ---             ---- 
	  using_dma               1               0               1               rw

Another way to check is (after becoming su)

          
  # /sbin/hdparm -i /dev/hdc
  The response in my case:
  /dev/hdc: Model=Pioneer DVD-ROM ATAPIModel DVD-115 0133, FwRev=E1.33, Serial
  No= Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic } RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0 
  BuffType=13395, BuffSize=64kB, MaxMultSect=0 (maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0 IORDY=on/off, 
  tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
  DMA modes:  sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
  UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 AdvancedPM=no 
  Drive conforms to: device does not report version:  1 2 3 4
  Thus this drive supports not only DMA but also UDMA modes.  
  The commandto set DMA is:           
  # /sbin/hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc

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Supra modem driver not installed

I went to hardware.redhat.com and found that I must download the rpm from www.linuxant.com/drivers. You must first identify the modem chip by doing


  $ lspci
Then you get 

  ...(omitted)           
  02:0c.0 Communication controller: Conexant HCF 56k Data/Fax Modem (rev 08)

This means that you have a modem with Conexant HCF chip. You download the correct driver by identifying the Linux kernel version:

           
  $ uname -r

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Updating to RedHat 9.0

Maintaining four RedHat is becoming a pain (7.2 is the old crunky, 7.3 is my work laptop, 8.0 is this PC and 9.0 is HP laptop. Therefore, I decided to update this PC to RedHat 9.0. I download RedHat 9.0from RedHat and burned 3 CDs. It took a while to download three iso disksworth.Once they were burned here, it was easy. I also downloaded the latest NVidia linuxdriver from NVidia and the modem driver from linuxant above. When I putthe first disk, it came up with the menu which does not update the system.I restarted PC and booted off from the CD without problems. Everything went smooth. When rebooting finished, it could not start X. I forgot aboutchanging setting in /etc/inittab here. Then I ran the Nvidia ....run. Next, I installed the modemdriver for RedHat 9 ( Linux 2.4.20-8). Unfortunately, at the end of theinstall, it removed /dev/modem and related one, which are really necessary.I used rpm --force -Uvh to reinstall and this time it created /dev/modem and related one. Then, I was able to call my IP provider without problems. It really went smooth. The only problem is that my video card(old TNT2) seems not compatible with the RedHat 9 XWindows driver. It leavesa big square cursor when the screen gets updated.

When redhat updates the kernel, you may have to rebuild a driver for thatversion of kernel. You may be able to get the newer version from Nvidia, but only from ftp site. Nvidia installer will tell you about this: ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-4496/updates (in this case the version is 4496). Unfortunately, Nvidia is slow to provideupdates. I could not find 2.4.20-20.9 version in Octover, even though 2.4.20-20.9 was released in August.

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Edited on 8/14/2003