🚀 go-pugleaf

mike@starbug.apana.org.au (Mike Battersby) writes:

>cas@muffin.apana.org.au (Craig Sanders) writes:
> > Does anyone know if the QLOGIC VLB SCSI card is supported by the
> > Linux kernel?

> Apparently the driver is being developed, but has been in such a state
> for some time and may be so for some time to come.  I'd stick with the
> Buslogic.

That's what I thought.

I'm currently using a VL-300 (based on adaptec 1522) local bus card.
It's OK, not terribly fast but it sort of works.

I find that the kernel panics if the SCSI bus is busy (e.g. I am doing a
tape backup) and the kernel needs to page in something from swap if the
swap is on the SCSI disk.

If I have the swap partition on my ESDI disk, it works OK.  So, the
VL-300 is a reasonable, cheap card for a second hard disk, or for CD-ROM
or tape but is no good as the only disk controller in the system.

Fortunately, the VL-300 is on loan from my father - he doesn't need it
right now, and I will either buy it from him if the driver ever works
100% or give it back to him when I get a better card.

I test it out every time I upgrade the kernel by setting the swap
partition to /dev/sda3, running make in /usr/src/linux or something
else suitably large (to make sure that swapping is happening), and then
running tar to backup some data to tape.  Fortunately ex2fs is VERY
robust and I haven't lost any data yet :-)

The vl-300 is also a VLB IDE controller, so it can be used safely
in conjunction with a cheap 40MB IDE drive for the root and swap
partitions.

-- 
Craig Sanders                                     cas@muffin.apana.org.au
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