[NMLUG] big disks

[paul.tietjens at moriarty.k12.nm.us (Paul Tietjens)]

Aaron Birenboim wrote:

> Daniel Lark wrote:
>
>>> I don't think the bios is involved, doesn't linux operate the 
>>> controller itself and ignore the bios completely?  I wonder if 
>>> you've got an old controller or there's some other problem with the 
>>> disk.
>>
>>
>>
>> That's not entirely true. You can override the BIOS to an extent, but
>> not completely.
>>
>> It sounds like this is the case on Aaron's system. Take a look at:
>> http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/sizeGB128-c.html. The answer seems
>> to be to add a newer ATA133 controller. It seems to be a problem with
>> ATA33/66/100 only being able to with LBA48 addressing.
>>
>> -dan
>>
>
> I may or may not have a hardware or bios limit on the disk
> size here.   I definately have a limit with the kernel.
> I am running debian stable on a dual 1GHz machine.
> The latest kernel for debian stable is 2.4.18.
> It appears that large IDE support STARTED with 2.4.19.
>
> Not wanting to get too far off the "stable" line, I tried
> to patch to 2.4.19.  It failed miserably.  Conflicts.
> Either debian's stable kernel is waaaaay patched up, or
> I goofed someplace.
>
> So... what can I do?   This is a production machine, and I'm
> a little afraid to tinker with it.
>
> What was that software that allows you to use SOME unstable
> packages on a stable debian system?  Should I use this
> to get a newer kernel?
>
> or...  can I switch over to the unstable distro totally?
>

Try
apt-get install -t unstable <kernel image name here>

I have 12 machines running stable distros with 2.6 series kernels.  It 
Can Be Done. ;)

Oh, and there are likely some directions involved regarding lilo.conf.  
They're important, and should be followed.