[Sheflug] New User

["Netsonic" <nospam [at] blueyonder.co.uk>]

Hi everyone.

Not sure how many will see this but here goes.

Ive just found the site today after looking in the LXF mag.

OK. Im fairly new to Linux (very new actually).  I have downloaded and tried to install RedHat 7.1.

Ive burnt the CD's, ran the install and everything appeared to go smoothly (I was quite impressed it picked up both my video card + monitor which 6.2 never did).

The problem(s) ive come across which are stopping me using the system are:

1. I downloaded a driver for an onboard Promise FastTrak RAID controller. Put it onto floppy as per the instructions and booted into 'expert text' mode (I also added the 'dd' option).  From the readme file supplied, it states that the controller driver should be loaded from the disk. When i got the prompt for a driver disk, the setup accessed the disk for all of about 1 second and that was it - no driver loaded. After restarting from that installation, I couldnt boot at all. (Just got some very strange whirring sounds from the disks attached to the RAID).

Having switched from RAID back to single disk configuration, I ran the install again and managed to boot OK.

2. The majority of the hardware detection went without a hitch and my two network cards were both recognised fine. Enter prob No 2 - I have B.Y High Speed Access and can not get a connection through either card.  Ive searched all over for the network settings I need (at least i think i have anyway). I set the appropriate card to use DHCP and gave the second one a private IP address (10.0.x.x).  But i have still not been able to get any outside connection, and Im fairly sure it is one of the network components that isnt set as it should be.  All of the hardware addresses are set to server assigned.  When i next booted the machine, the list scrolled up as each of the modules were loading, and then surprise surprise, fail on device eth0.  Being an NT buff, I immediately looked for TCP/IP settings and couldnt find anything on them.

My machine spec is:

1 Ghz Athlon Chip
128 Mb ECC SDRam
16 Mb Banshee Video
2 x 9 Gb DMA 66 Drives (On RAID array)
1 x 26 Gb DMA 66 Drive (Used as a data archive)
SB Live Soundcard
1 x 3Com 905 NIC
1 x RealTek NIC
Gigabyte GA7Z-XR Mainboard

I actually got the RAID driver from the Promise website, as Gigabyte havent posted any Linux drivers yet.

Its a fairly standard spec that used to fly under NT and Ive temporarily switched it back until i can find out a bit more.

In summary the problems are:

1.  I cant be sure of disk integrity unless I can get it to load the RAID driver on installation.

2.  I dont really want to progress the installation any further until I can get the network going.

Everything else on the installation appeared to go OK, although I didnt look at the other areas in too much detail.

If there is anybody who could give me any pointers on either of these two problems, I would much appreciate it.  This 7.1 release looks exactly what I need and want, but being a long time NT user, I just dont have the experience of Linux (yet).

Kind regards,

Steve.

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