Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

Thanks for that helpful info, Sindi.  We were having the exact same
problem the other day when we installed Linux to a brand new laptop and
tried to tweak the HD settings.

As for xvesa/fbdev: like I mentioned, they're pretty poorly documented.  A
place where I learned a bit about xvesa though was on an active web-based
listserv for a live CD distro called DamnSmallLinux: it uses xvesa/fbdev,
so issues concerning it are discussed alot there.  If you ferret through
the archive, you are likely to find some helpful tidbits.  DamnSmallLinux
homepage is at www.damnsmalllinux.org .  A link for the forum is on that
page (look under display/X discussions).

James

PS If you use a serial mouse, some special tweaking of xvesa is required.
I can provide tips on getting a serial mouse working using it, if you have
one and get that far.

On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Sindi Keesan wrote:

> After both hard drives with linux on them in our Compaq Presario 500 MHz
> curbside-find computer (that came with Redhat on it) had the same DRQ
> reset message problem, I looked up the error message line on the web and
> got over 900 hits.  The first few were from people like Linus Torvalds
> discussing how they patched the problem in kernel 2.4.x or how it only
> occurred after upgrading from a 486 to a pentium or from 2.0 to 2.2 or
> from something else to a Compaq.  Everyone said their computer still was
> usable but it was very frustrating to have this message keep appearing in
> the middle of everything, sometimes with a pause that required hitting the
> enter key.
>
> Here is the cure.  I tried it and it worked.  My magic number is 16.  I
> will put the cure into rc.S unless someone has a better idea as we do not
> seem to have rc.local.
>
>
> Unfortunately, now that this is a linux-usable computer, I still need to
> get fbdev or xvesa server working in order to get more than 8-bit color.
> The xvesa manual was not helpful as I don't understand it.  Maybe someone
> has posted something equally helpful about xvesa.
>
>
>
>                          LinuxSA Mailing list archives
>      _________________________________________________________________
>
>   From: Fraser Farrell <fraser AT trilobytes.com.au>
>   To  : <linuxsa AT linuxsa.org.au>
>   Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 07:06:43 GMT
>
>
> [Note the date!]
>
>                     A cure to "no DRQ after issuing WRITE"
>
> THE PROBLEM
> A message like this one appears on all of your
> console displays (logged in or not), X terminals,
> console applications, etc  disrupting anything
> that happens to be on screen:
>
>    no DRQ after issuing WRITE
>    ide0 reset: success
>
> [I was getting this message in the body of text I was trying to edit with
> pico, as well as in the middle of du and find.]
>
>
> Because That Message appears hundreds
> of times per day; you're soon reduced to a
> quivering wreck of frustration, desperately
> reading HOW-TOS and manpages and DejaNews and
> zillions of mail archives. But all you can
> find is thousands of pleas from other poor
> sods with the same problem, and hundreds of
> replies saying "the hard disk is faulty".
>
> But more often than not, your IDE hard disk
> is either brand new, or it was running that
> other popular operating system for months
> or years before you rescued it.
>
>
> SO WHY IS IT HAPPENING?
> The kernel hackers reading this know the
> answer already (and can probably recite
> the relevant source code from memory ;-)
>
> But in simple terms, this message is Linux's
> way of telling you that it tried to WRITE to
> a batch of disk sectors at once; but the drive
> controller didn't respond with the IDE
> "standard reply" to this multi-sector write.
>
> Some newer drives  such as many Seagate
> models  extend their capabilities by
> providing extra info in their response to a
> WRITE. Or they may be waiting for another
> batch of data before actually doing the WRITE
> and issuing the response.
>
> An antique drive may also have trouble because
> its controller doesn't respond in a "standard
> IDE" way. This one probably won't affect you
> unless you're a Linux minimalist trying to
> run everything from a 20MB Conner... ;-)
>
> Anyway, whenever Linux accesses these drives,
> it detects what it thinks is a hardware glitch,
> tries to reset the drive controller, and issues
> That Message.
>
> Your drive ISN'T broken, but it's speaking
> in an accent. Linux needs a bit of help to
> understand what the drive controller is saying.
>
>
> A CURE
> You need to use "hdparm" to interrogate the
> disk controller, and then to tell Linux how to
> access the drive in future. To save you from
> reading the manpage (recommended, hdparm has
> a ton of features...) here's the procedure that
> gets rid of That Message in most cases:
>
>  (1) log in as root
>
>  (2) hdparm -i /dev/hda
>
> This interrogates your first IDE hard disk,
> and displays a pile of info about your disk
> and its controller. The interesting bit is
> the value of "MaxMultSect", which describes
> your disk's multi-sector read/write capability.
> You can do hdparm -i /dev/hdb to find out about
> your second IDE hard disk, and so on.
> As an example, my server's second drive
> (a 2GB Seagate) returns a value of 32 for
> MaxMultSect.
>
>  (3) hdparm -mX /dev/hda
>
> where X is the MaxMultSect value reported
> in step (2). This tells Linux about your
> disk's multi-sector read/write capability.
> Using my second drive as an example again:
>      hdparm -m32 /dev/hdb
>
> If this stops That Message from appearing, then
>
>  (4) Add the hdparm -mX... command to your startup
> script (typically /etc/rc.local) so that this
> cure is automatically applied if you reboot.
>
> However, if That Message continues to appear,
> you may need to specify other hdparm settings.
> Or you may really have a faulty hard drive or
> controller.
>
> But for most sufferers, the above procedure
> should alleviate much wailing and gnashing
> of teeth. It's helped me on many occasions.
>
>
> cheers,
> Fraser Farrell       fraser AT trilobytes.com.au
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> (in deference to our idiotic new copyright laws)
> Permission is granted to forward this entire
> message to anyone who might be interested, and
> to store it in mailing archives, and to display
> it on publically-accessible websites.
>
> --
> LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on irc.linux.org.au
> To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
>   mail linuxsa-request AT linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe" as the subject
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BasLinux mailing list
> BasLinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/baslinux