Rainer Koenig wrote:
Hi,
Problem: We have new PC with SiS 761 chipset that introduces a new SATA
controller that is acutally not covered by the sata_sis driver that comes
with any kernel, including the kernels from kernel.org.
Solution: SIS offers a driver source on their website. If I apply this
source on a already installed hard disk (on another system that has an
older SiS chipset) then I can built a kernel, that also starts on the
new system.
Remaining problem: Customers that only have the new system and nothing
else still can't install Fedora Core 4 since the installer fails to
detect the hard disk. I guess that's the problem described in
Bug 160404 (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=160404 ).
Possible solution: Fedora Core 4 can be installed with the dd paramter
at boot time, so I need to provide a driver disk. Questions on this:
1. Does this driver disk give me the possibility to provide a patched
version of sata_sis.ko that is used instead of the version that
comes from the installation DVD? So that then the installer detects
my harddisk and installs the patched module as well in the kernel?
Yes.
2. If (1) can be answered with "yes" then the really important
question is: How do I create such a driver disk? What do I need
for that? How difficult is this process? Are there RPMs with a
sort of "driver disk construction kit" available?
There is no kit and virtually no documentation available. However, it's
do-able. You'll need to build the required module(s) for the FC4
installer kernel, all arches that you want to support, in a structure
like this:
2.6.11-1.1369_FC4/i586/sata_sis.ko
2.6.11-1.1369_FC4/i686/sata_sis.ko
2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp/i686/sata_sis.ko
Then make a moduleball:
ls -1 */*/*.ko > modules-list
cpio -o --format=crc < modules-list | gzip -c -9 > modules.cgz
You'll need the following files on the driver disk:
modinfo
modules.cgz
modules.dep
modules.pcimap
pcitable
rhdd
For examples of the format of these files, see my driver disk for the
Advansys SCSI controller:
http://www.city-fan.org/ftp/contrib/drivers/advansys/
Write that lot to a VFAT format floppy and you're done.
Paul.
