How do I add a third party SATA driver to KNOPPIX at boot

[rolflist]

Bob Berwick ( http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/.../msg00639.html )
has reported a succesful installation of linux on a Dell 8400 right out of the box:

Bob Berwick wrote:
"Red Hat released Update 3 of their RH Enterprise System Version 3 linux.
This Update 3 patched the ata_piix driver so that it *does* handle ICH6.
It can boot and install RH linux successfully on my Dimension 8400, properly recognizing
the drive partitions as sd* (rather than hd*).
'doze even dual boots."

Thus it should be possible to get it running on knoppix, etc.. too.

Will first need a backup and then give it a try.

[rolflist]

Remaining issue:
Any suggestion for a debian/knoppix 2.6 compatible system, that can be installed on a SATA hard disk running via the autoraid/AHCI interface ?
...

Kanotix 2005-1 (vs. 2.78 ), a debian linux based on Knoppix, ( http://www.kanotix.org )
will recognize SATA disks in a Dell Dimension 8400 with BIOS set to "Raid autodetect/AHCI.
It also detected sound (ALSA) and the ADSL connectionat eth0 (DHCP).

Kanotix 2005-1 uses kernel 2.6.10-kanotix-8.

[rolflist]

Installing SuSE Linux 9.2 + kernel 2.6.11 on a Dell Dimension 8400

Bob Berwick ( http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/.../msg00639.html )
has reported a succesful installation of linux on a Dell 8400 right out of the box:

This confirms all notes above.

Based on notes that I took from http://www.homerengineeringcorp.net/mythtv/myth.html ,
I installed Suse 9.2+ kernel 2.6.11, but I am fairly confident that one can do the same with debian,
knoppix, redhat or fedora.
My system is a Dell Dimension 8400, BIOS A03, 2x SATA WD160GB, ATI X300.
There is on both disks a bootable Windows XP, both initially with 2 partitions:
partition 1 is a Dell Utility Fat16 file system, partition 2 is NTFS with Windows XP.

I added linux to disk 2. It boots from "Autoraid/AHCI". I can choose Grub to choose between XP and linux.
I have still the original Dell Windows XP installation.

The SATA part in .config (made with "make cloneconfig" and using the defaults suggested in "make xconfig") is
....
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA=y
# CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_AHCI is not set
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_SVW=m
CONFIG_SCSI_ATA_PIIX=m
CONFIG_SCSI_SATA_NV=m
....

Since it is not debian or knoppix, I will post the details of this installation at a different forum.
URL will follow here:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...essage.id=5859

[rolflist]

Remaining issue:
Any suggestion for a debian/knoppix 2.6 compatible system, that can be installed on a SATA hard disk running via the autoraid/AHCI interface ?
...

Knoppix_V3.8_2005-02-28_CeBit_edition.iso (german) will boot on a Dell 8400 with "Autoraid/AHCI", and will
recognize the SATA disks. Knoppix V3.8 has kernel 2.6.11.

Like many 2.6.x kernels there is an issue to use Hyperthreading SMP on Intel P6's together with ACPI.
The boot will stall after 'Init:version 2.78-knoppix booting', but this can be bypassed by typeing at boot:
knoppix acpi=off
However, now only 1 of the 2 CPUs will be recognized.

If you prefer "english" and have a "US" keyboard, type at boot:
knoppix lang=us acpi=off
To get "=" you have to type "SHIFT 0", if you have a US keyboard and start knoppix (default german).