Hints and Tips for Red Hat Linux

Installation with 1GB RAM

Attempts to install with 1GB RAM fail when booting from diskette. The message VFS: Insert Root floppy and press Enter is displayed on the system console. All is well if the system is installed with 768MB, and a further 256MB can be added successfully after installation, BUT the system recognises only 980MB.

Multiprocessor [SMP] Kernel

In order to utilise more than one processor, you must select the expert installation option and choose the appropriate package for an SMP kernel. An attempt to build a single processor system, followed by an update to a multi-processor kernel will result in an unuseable system disk.

System Disk on a RAID Controller

Problems were experienced when placing the system disk on a RAID controller. Users should avoid this configuration.

Using both On-Board SCSI Adapters and additional SCSI/RAID Adapter(s)

Several problems have been found on systems that have disks fitted to BOTH the on-board SCSI adapter and an additional SCSI/RAID adapter. The installation of Linux appears successful, but when the system is rebooted, either some disks are no longer available, or the system fails to boot.

Until these problems are resolved users are recommended to restrict usage to a SINGLE adapter.

Using Large Numbers of Hard Disks

There appears to be a problem accessing large numbers of hard disk drives. On a system fitted with 14 (fourteen) hard drives only the first twelve (12) could be accessed. Users are therefore not recommended to use more than 12 (twelve) hard drives.

Installation on C800i with dual 700MHz Coppermine processors

When the operating system is installed on C800i servers using dual 700MHz Coppermine processors, the OS reports zero bytes cache for both processors, even though the BIOS reports 256KB. This problem does not exist on 600MHz processors, and has been reported to Red Hat. The BIOS version used was BIOS vR03-D4 F0.