Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 4 Feb 2001 23:43:57 -0800
From:      "3Phase" <Phase3@worldnet.att.net>
To:        <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Green Monkeys fly up the screen
Message-ID:  <001001c08f47$9d859040$88a0480c@sisyphus2>

next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
FreeBSD and Windows are both rock solid and running hot, straight and
normal. It has taken an extraordinary amount of work to get to this point.
Now, I'm stuck.

FreeBSD v4.0 (CD-ROM) 3.4 stable on:
Compaq Deskpro 6200/2150 233Mhz PPro with 96M Compaq EDO Ram.
Compaq Adaptec2940U PCI SCSI controller
Intel embedded PIIX3 PCI ATA controllor
Promise Ultra666 ATA PCI controller

Compaq Seagate 2G SCSI drive
Maxtor 46G 7200Rpm UDMA mode 5
IBM 13G 7200Rpm UDMA mode 4
Toshiba 6203B 32x ATAPI CD-ROM

Zoom 56K Dualmode external modem on cuaa1. (modem is not detected)
Compaq embedded Netelligent 10/100 ethernet controller on /dev/tl0.

Compaq ESS1868 ISA card
Creative Ensoniq Audio PCI card (SB 128 compatible)
neither of which will emit so much as a click at the present time in FreeBSD
but work together flawlessly in Win98.

I compiled a nice, custom kernel with just the devices I actually have and
added the option for color. Color==yellow/green text on a black background.
Oh well, at least it's color.

My Compaq and I were finally confident enough to try the Internet again with
FreeBSD.

I set up all the ppp configuration files (and Options file for pppd) to
negotiate a CHAP login with my ISP.

Using KDE kppp for a CHAP connection (yes, X works fine):
<Modem TR,OH,CD, 56K light up indicating a connection but no v42 EC light>
Kppp status screen shows initializing modem, dialing, logging on...and on.

The RD modem light shows I'm receiving data and the TD flashes occasionally.
Sometimes it connects, sometimes it dies "unexpectedy" or times out.

If I get a connection and try to use Kmail I get an error message saying
"OPEN: not found" or something like that. No modem lights flash so input is
being sent to something else. (A clue!)

The docs say kppp uses kernel mode pppd and advise user mode ppp.
Okay, I'll try it by hand in text mode.

sisyphus% ppp
pppON> term
at
<TD/RD lights flash>
ok
<dial isp w/CHAP>
<Modem TR,OH,CD, 56K light up indicating a connection but no EC light>
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Green Monkeys are flying out of my... er, up the screen!

The RD light shows I'm receiving data and the TD flashes occasionally.
After timeout or I just turn the modem off and back on the modem responds to
AT commands but I cannot exit terminal mode to quit ppp.
I have to Alt-f2, login again and kill ppp.

The ppp.log says nothing except the connection waas made but login timed out
or disconnected. No kidding... no login, no browser, no news, no email.
Nothing. Eventually, cron wakes up, looks around, and updates more logs
telling me
everything is fine.

All the docs say PPP is supposed to configure itself during the connection
but that apparently is not happening.  If a connection is actually made to
my ISP nothing I type gets to the modem - no lights.

You probably have some idea how frustrating this is.  I'm bouncing between
Windows OE and Agent for news and mail and then trying the advice in
FreeBSD without the benefit of the actual text.  I'm doing the floppy
shuffle to get data between the two systems. It's ugly but it works.

(I don't have the guts to try and mount my Win98 drive (ad4) and snarf the
data because The Book says it's possible to blow away the data just trying
to mount it if FreeBSD doesn't like the format. Time for a FAT12/16 DOS
partition)

But, "It's alive!"

Yes, I finally found a stable combination for FreeBSD and Windows!
I use the SCSI drive for dualboot. The FreeBSD root slice is shares the SCSI
drive with the Win98 boot partition without getting confused about geometry.

The CD-ROM is a ch1 slave with no master on the embedded Intel PIIX3
controller (IRQ14) with the secondary channel disabled.
This allows booting a CD without causing an endless boot loop if no CD is in
the drive.

FreeBSD /usr and /swap are ch2 master ATA on a Promise666 as /dev/ad6.
The Promise card gives better throughput than the stock Compaq controller.

If I use the embedded PIIX3 ATA controller FreeBSD gets confused about
the drive geometry and hoses up itself and everything else on the drive.
By putting the ATA drives on the Promise controller the system assigns the
SCSI drive as drive C: and boots from it instead of the ATA drive.

FreeBSD still gets confused about the geometry but since I gave it a whole
disk to play with it can be as confused as it wants about geometry without
damaging anything else.

FreeBSD seems to have an affinity for for complex SCSI devices but can't
read ATA devices my ten year old DOS programs still display in milliseconds.
At least it runs. :)

The drives:
Dualboot: 2G "Compaq" ST2155N SCSI on Adaptec 2940U SCSI controller
BootMagic bootstrap loader
1G Win98SE on da0s1a
1G FreeBSD / on da0s2a

Dedicated: 46G Maxtor UDMA100 7200RPM on Promise66 ch1 master
15G Win98SE on ad4s1a
The remainder is unused, at present, but I'll think of something. <g>

DangerouslyDedicated: 13G IBM UDMA66 7200RPM on Promise66 ch2 master
12.5G FreeBSD /usr on ad6s1a
500M FreeBSD /swap on ad6s1b

Notes:
The default CMOS settings on this machine assign IRQ11 to all devices.
Windows has had no problem with this, so far, and FreeBSD has never once
complained about it either. <picture PCI Steering around IRQ11 Maypole>

I've reassigned the PCI devices to use separate IRQs (the ESS ISA card gets
IRQ5) because I don't trust shared IRQs. Watching it boot and reading the
dmesg
output shows that FreeBSD always finds everything except the modem, no
matter
what IRQ they use.

I've worked weeks on this, it's all stable but I'm stumped. :(

-3P
















To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?001001c08f47$9d859040$88a0480c>