Kernel 2.6, SCSI, 64-bit

[Net Llama!]

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Robert E. Raymond wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I just installed an Athlon 64 with an Asus board.  Everything else from
> my previous system stayed the same, and this would include 2 SCSI disks,
> one for Lin (sda1,2,3) one for Win (sdb1).
>
> Windows works as well as Windows can work.
>
> Linux on the other hand wouldn't boot with a 2.6.0-test9 kernel or with
> a 2.6.0 final kernel.  It did boot from the Gentoo Amd64 LiveCD, where I
> found one of my problems with why it wouldn't boot to be that I compiled
> the 2.6.0 kernel in 32bit mode but the processor wanted to be in 64bit
> mode.  The kernel wouldn't recompile because I hadn't recompiled glibc,
> gcc, etc. to be 64bit, so I went to do that, and started getting reams
> of SCSI read/write and I/O errors, on both sda2 (XFS) and sda1 (ext3,
> boot partition).  Running xfs_repair doesn't work on sda2 because during
> stage 1, I get enough read/write errors for it to halt.
>
> Question is:  Are there any known 64-bit issues with SCSI and the 2.6
> kernel?

>From my casual reading, i think the answer is yes, there are a lot of
issues.  I have this vague recollection of there being some kind of
special patches needed to get 64bit support working properly under linux.
What those are exactly, i don't really remember though.  I know that the
xfs_progs package does have glibc dependencies, so if your glibc is
borked, or you haven't rebuild xfs_progs against a 64bit aware glibc, that
would certaily explain your current mess.  You might want to subscribe to
the xfs mailing list if rebuilding xfs_progs doesn't resolve this problem
for you.  The developers on that list are very responsive, and extremely
helpful.

> other question:  The cable seems to be a little on the 'frayed' side..
> all the wires appear to be intact, but it's one of those ones with
> twisted wires wrapped in celophane, and a lot of the wires are just
> hanging loose.  Does this mean it should be replaced?  Is this possibly
> the culprit? It certainly worked fine with the Athlon XP...  Forgive my
> ignorance about SCSI

I'd say this isn't a hardware issue, since you're not having the problem
in windoze, and you didn't have the problem before the CPU upgrade.  SCSI
hardware is very sensitive to frayed wires and the like, so it wouldn't be
a bad idea to get the cable replaced regardless, if you can easily do so.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman				netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo		     http://netllama.ipfox.com