Adaptec 29160
Posts: 6
Hello all,
This is my first post on the forum, although I've been reading it for months. As a bit of a background, I've been a computer hardware tech by trade for 25+ years. If it plugs into a wall, I've worked on it. I began working with UNIX back in the late 80's and have loved it ever since. I'm by no means a programmer, but am certified in Sun Solaris, and IBM AIX at an Administrative level. In other words, I know enough to be dangerous. I can't write a script, but can hack one if need be.
My home "network" consists of a white box PC with an Asus motherboard, AMD 2.1 GHZ CPU, 1GB ram, ATI FireGL 8800 AGP, two Compaq TFT450 LCD monitors running extended desktop, 250GB SATA internal drive, six 18GB external SCSI drives for playing with RAID and LVM, connected to an Adaptec 29160 controller. My other system is a Mac G4 running OS X 3.9. As I write this, I'm sharing the modem on the Mac, and have drives cross shared between both systems. My only drawback is the lousy dialup connection I have out here in the sticks. I can only connect at 26.4K baud... 
I discovered Mepis a few months back, after an e-mail from my boss stating that the computer re-sale company I work for has received a number of tech support calls for Linux. None of our technical staff was that familiar with Linux, so I did some research. I'm now running Mepis, and haven't looked back. I've found out that Linux = work, but that's true of any distro I've tried (forgive me, I'm still learning the Linux lingo). What's a little work? I lost most of my hair years ago. What are a few more strands? 
I have to admit, it's come a long way from the first time I tried to install Redhat...
My Linux box is a three way boot system with Mepis 3.4.3 RC4 as my main working system, Mepis 6 Beta 3 for testing, and Windoze XP Pro when I have to use Windows, which is growing less and less by the day...
Now that I've rambled on, here is my main problem. With every release of Mepis 6 Beta, my Adaptec 29160 has not worked. It worked fine with rev. 6 alpha 2, and works like a champ with 3.4.3. Is anybody else using an Adaptec controller using the aic7XXX driver, and have gotten it to work? I've researched some Ubunto forums, and others have the same problems, but the fixes some people have posted are difficult to decypher at best, have mixed results, and I don't think they would work with Mepis. I was hoping that beta 4 would fix it, but I still get the same errors on boot up. If needed, I can post the dmesg errors, or what ever you need, on a follow up. KinfoCenter does show the card normally on the PCI bus.
I'd love to hear back from a Mepis guru, as I'm 99% free from Windoze. But this is a show stopper right now. Those external SCSI drives are where I want to store my shared data, and I can't do that with 6 beta as of yet.
P.S.
Right now, I have the SCSI drives running on a Qlogic SCSI controller with no problem, other than it is only Ultra2.
using the aic7XXX driver,
Posts: 2280
Squint if youre still out there you may be in luck. I just got a fresh install of 6.0 up with an adaptec2930cu controller that uses the aic7xxx driver. Its an ultra-1or2 plus 50pin dual controller i dont remember the exact specs for the small cable. Dont know where the manual is now i havent played with it in allmost four years but Mepis 6.0 is running very happily with it and an old Seagate sx910800n 10gig ten pound drive on the fifty pin connector!
My major problem was booting the system after what appeared to be a good install. Kept getting kernel panics unable to mount vfs etcetra kept playing with grub for many hours to find the secret of clicking use initrd in mbr when installing grub at Mepis install. Works perfectly now allmost wore finger out hitting f3 to append grub at boot trying basically the same boot string & everything else i could think of.
Im not sure if this is going to be of any use to you since your drives are for storage. I had no problem with live cd running, writing and reading the scsi drive. It wasnt clear to me what your problem was, the aic7xxx driver loads no problem for me BUT i have only the scsi drive hooked up.
Anyway ive been around the block with this thing and might be able to give you a clue as to whats up, just yell.
Drlizau i did a modprobe for you aic9xxx module and its not present in my rig either, are you sure the aic7xxx wont work? Funny thing im sure i saw refrence to it in the device map and kernel config files.
jim
module in 6.0
Posts: 4864
the module is in mepis 6.0 final
and my scanner is found
[17179603.504000] scsi1 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 7.0
[17179603.504000]
[17179603.504000] aic7850: Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 3/253 SCBs
[17179603.504000]
but i still have to deal with the xscanimage problem to use the scanner
module in 6.0
Posts: 2280
I had a go round with that bugger too on one test machine with betas, it worked fine on two others. I finally discover some packages wernt being installed on that rig for some unknown reason and i used the same cd to install on all rigs.
If memory serves part of the problem was Mepis-Auto and others involved in hardware setup and detection. System just couldnt detect the scanner to setup drivers . It showed in info center but no support was installed somehow. Kooka would start and hang and gimp would hang at xscanimage forcing a kill. You might look at this too for ideas. Http://www.mepis.org/node/9954
It has some posts about xscanimage.
jim
no
Posts: 4864
aic9xxx here doesn't work, so i go back to an old boot to use my scanner.
I did let know at the time but i haven't actually tested beta 4 yet to see if it works there.
if i'm really stuck i'll be recompiling my kernel to add support