asus mobo, fc5, nvidia chipset, and fixing hd

[Rick Stevens]

On Wed, 2006-08-02 at 18:52 -0400, tyche wrote:
> recently had a friend give me his comp, and i tried to install 
> fc5 x86_64 on it. the first problem i encountered was the 
> hard drive had (according to anaconda) was that it had more 
> than 1024 cylinders on it, 75000+ on a 40gb wd hd.
> 
> got to a text screen, used fdisk x c 1024 w and rebooted the 
> machine. still have the 75000 or so cylinders.

Not a problem.  Read on.
> 
> did some calling and found that the mobo had an nvidia chipset 
> on it. it would appear that to install fc5 on this particular 
> board, i have to build a driver disk with the proprietary 
> nvidia drivers on it.

Not necessary for FC5 for normal operations.  Install in text mode
only.  FC5 includes a NIC driver for the nVidia chipset.

For GUI operations, you'll need to install the nvidia drivers or live
with VESA mode.  To install the nvidia drivers, enable the nvidia yum
repository.  I'd add the following two files to /etc/yum.repos.d:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
livna-devel.repo:
[livna-development]
name=Livna for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Development Tree
baseurl=
        http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/$basearch/
        http://livna.cat.pdx.edu/fedora/development/$basearch/

http://wftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/livna/fedora/development/$basearch/

http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/$basearch/
        http://mirror.atrpms.net/livna/fedora/development/$basearch/

ftp://mirrors.tummy.com/pub/rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/$basearch/
failovermethod=priority
#mirrorlist=http://rpm.livna.org/mirrorlist-development
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livna

[livna-development-debuginfo]
name=Livna for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Development Tree -
Debug
baseurl=
        http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/$basearch/debug/
        http://livna.cat.pdx.edu/fedora/development/$basearch/debug/

http://wftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/livna/fedora/development/$basearch/debug/

http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/$basearch/debug/

http://mirror.atrpms.net/livna/fedora/development/$basearch/debug/

ftp://mirrors.tummy.com/pub/rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/$basearch/debug/
failovermethod=priority
enabled=0
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livna
gpgcheck=1

[livna-development-source]
name=Livna for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Development Tree -
Source
baseurl=
        http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/SRPMS/
        http://livna.cat.pdx.edu/fedora/development/SRPMS/

http://wftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/livna/fedora/development/SRPMS/

http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/SRPMS/
        http://mirror.atrpms.net/livna/fedora/development/SRPMS/

ftp://mirrors.tummy.com/pub/rpm.livna.org/fedora/development/SRPMS/
failovermethod=priority
enabled=0
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livna
gpgcheck=1
---------------------------------------------------------------------
livna.repo:
[livna]
name=Livna for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=
        http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/
        http://livna.cat.pdx.edu/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/

http://wftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/livna/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/

http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/
        http://mirror.atrpms.net/livna/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/

ftp://mirrors.tummy.com/pub/rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/
failovermethod=priority
#mirrorlist=http://rpm.livna.org/mirrorlist-5
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livna

[livna-debuginfo]
name=Livna for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Debug
baseurl=
        http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/debug/
        http://livna.cat.pdx.edu/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/debug/

http://wftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/livna/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/debug/

http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/debug/

http://mirror.atrpms.net/livna/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/debug/

ftp://mirrors.tummy.com/pub/rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/debug/
failovermethod=priority
enabled=0
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livna
gpgcheck=1

[livna-source]
name=Livna for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Source
baseurl=
        http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/SRPMS/
        http://livna.cat.pdx.edu/fedora/$releasever/SRPMS/

http://wftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/livna/fedora/$releasever/SRPMS/

http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/SRPMS/
        http://mirror.atrpms.net/livna/fedora/$releasever/SRPMS/

ftp://mirrors.tummy.com/pub/rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/SRPMS/
failovermethod=priority
enabled=0
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livna
gpgcheck=1
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Once that's done, "yum install kmod-nvidia" to install the drivers.
Then run "system-config-display" to configure it.

> also have to get the hd back to 1024 cylinders. any help will 
> be very gratefully appreciated.

The cylinder count is handled by BIOS.  Make sure the drive is being
handled in LBA mode in the BIOS.  The >1024 cylinder count is irrelevant
as long as your /boot partition is within the first 1024 cylinders or
you use grub as your boot loader in the MBR of the drive.  The BIOS
on most older machines is incapable of accessing a cylinder >1023, but
grub isn't.

Example, on an nVidia-based Athlon at home:

[root at xyclone ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1         131     1052226   83  Linux
/dev/hda2             132         653     4192965   83  Linux
/dev/hda3             654         914     2096482+  83  Linux
/dev/hda4             915        9964    72694125    5  Extended
/dev/hda5             915         979      522081   82  Linux swap /
Solaris
/dev/hda6             980        9964    72171981   83  Linux

Works fine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-   Which is worse: ignorance or apathy?  I don't know.  Who cares?  -
----------------------------------------------------------------------