[WBEL-users] File corruption and new kernel

[Bob Ramstad]

As suspected, trying to get the new version of sata_sil up and running
is a freaking mess.  I can build the latest kernel which includes a
new version of the sata_sil driver, but then named dumps core
apparently because the EL3 thread model (NTPL?) is different than that
used in the generic 2.4 kernel series.  Supposedly there are other
tools that have the same issue, I just noticed the named problems
right off the bat.

I've also tried sliding the sata_sil.c into drivers/scsi and building
from EL3 kernel-source but that spews massive numbers of warnings and
ultimately no kernel is produced.

Ugh.

I think I'm going to make one more stab, replacing the entire contents
of drivers/scsi, and see if that gets me a usable build.

Thanks to any and all that have thoughts on getting a more modern 2.4
kernel up and running on EL3...

-- Bob

On 5/27/05, Bob Ramstad <rramstad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Righto.  The builtin driver gives 1/20th of the performance of the
> sata_sil driver.  Using the builtin driver it's about twice as slow as
> a floppy.
> 
> I've run badblocks on every partition using the read write test, and
> also run all the diagnostics from the manufacturer, no issues popped
> up at all.
> 
> I'm a bit baffled as to what is going on...  but I do see that
> sata_sil has been under constant development and I'm sure the version
> in the current kernel-source RPM is old.
> 
> -- Bob
> 
> On 5/27/05, Graham David Purcocks M.A.(Oxon.) <grahamp at wsieurope.com> wrote:
> > And what happens if you use the crappy builtin driver? Maybe there is a
> > reason that is the one being issued.
> >
> > Don't know but worth asking the question.
> >
> >
> > BTW, We've had problems with a large number of SATA drives being duff,
> > so you could have a bad one.
> >
> > Graham
> >
> > On Fri, 2005-05-27 at 17:30, Bob Ramstad wrote:
> > > Hey there.  Two quickies...
> > >
> > > 1) I'm running the latest WBEL3 kernel recompiled with sata_sil
> > > instead of the crappy builtin driver.  I've been seeing some file
> > > corruption, it's odd, but basically when I copy large quantities of
> > > files (20+ GB) it is not uncommon for a handful of files to be
> > > corrupted.  As an example the other day, I copied 55 GB worth of
> > > files, roughly 2200 files in total, and ended up with three that
> > > wouldn't pass md5sum --check as compared to the original.
> > >
> > > Note in this case that the Serial ATA drives were the source, and the
> > > destination was a FAT32 filesystem.  Also note that once I recopied
> > > those three files, everything was fine.
> > >
> > > Has anyone else seen anything along these lines?  I would assume it's
> > > a Serial ATA specific problem, but not sure.
> > >
> > > 2) I'm feeling like the best thing to do would be to get a more recent
> > > kernel.  Part of me doesn't like doing this as it would fall outside
> > > the "yum" model i.e. if there's an update, I won't be automatically
> > > notified.  Is there anyone out there aware of a kernel-source yum
> > > repository for WBEL3 that is regularly updated for the latest 2.4
> > > kernel?
> > >
> > > -- Bob
> > >