Compaq DS 10 Boot and module load problems

Hi

I have here an Alphaserver DS10 from Compaq with
SRM Console and SUSE 7.1 alpha editiom running.
*(No alphabios, no OpenVMS, no True64 UNIX, no NT4 no NT5
no Remote console...)*
ONLY SRM and SUSE alpha 7.1

After setting enviroment variablen I'm able to boot with CD1
from CD-drive using aboot without entering the SRM console anymore
but then I come into the Linux Installation menue and have to load the
Kernelmodule de4x5 for my ethernetdevice
called (Digital equipment DE 500) This module I have to reload manually
every time I boot the server. After I loaded this and some othe modules,
I start the system and can work.
If I do not load this module my ethernetcard remains inactive and can't
be used to reach the network.


The server is from a colleague who is not reachable anymore and also
manuals etc are not sufficiant available.

Question 1:

Can I boot the server without using the CD1 from SUSE may be
via HD (my bootpartition is hdc1 but this is not known by the SRM
console. SRM console allowes only physical media like floppy CDROM
or eth0 eth1 and so on) or via Floppy bootdisk?

Question 2:

Is it possible to load the kernelmodules what I load manually
during the boot session automatically every time I boot?

The goal is:
I want switch on the server without CDROM and boot and login
on the KDE desktop without any other action?

Is this possible?

BR

Boris Gerlach

On Thu, 2006-11-23 at 11:56 +0100, boris gerlach wrote:
> Staffan Tjernstrom wrote:
>
>
> > I'm going to assume that you're using SCSI disks?
>
> No. I run one Fujitsu MPD3108 AT IDE 10,8 GB device
This is the root (pardon the unintentional pun) cause of your problem.

Alphas will only generally boot off of SCSI devices (or the floppy disk)
when running in SRM.

Still a few ways we can get this to work.

1/
I can't offhand remember, but I'm assuming that you'll have some form of
SCSI controller somewhere in the system.

Go out on eBay and pick up a 4GB SCSI-2 disk, they're practically free
these days for the shipping. You'll probably also need a 50-pin to
68-pin converter card (they can be had for around $10-$15 if not
cheaper).

Then do an install and place the /boot partition on the SCSI drive, and
you can have the rest of your partitions on the IDE drive (you may wish
to place the swap partition on the SCSI drive, or just use SCSI of
course). Even 9GB drives are cheap enough these days.

2/
If you want to keep the CD-ROM drive free during the boot, you can boot
from the floppy drive (although this does entail swapping between 2
diskettes during the boot process).

3/
I don't know if the DS10 supports AlphaBIOS at all (or indeed if it
allows for booting from IDE devices). If it does there'll be a download
image somewhere on the AlphaServer portion of the hp website.

Just want to check one thing here, are we dealing with a DS10, or a
DS10L?

We'll get there...

Staffan.