VMWare 64-bit disks

[teadriven]

I am currently trying out ploplinux-4.1.1-x64 in a VM to see if I can use it to run installation scripts. The VMWare machine is configured as a linux 64-bit system and has the limitation that it cannot use the buslogic driver for SCSI disks but must use lsilogic when running in 64-bit mode.

This poses a problem since ploplinux (booted via an ISO image in the VM) cannot find the disk.

Is there any way to get ploplinux to discover the disk or possibly modify ploplinux to include the appropriate kernel modules?

Thanks,
Dan

[Elmar]

hi,
you can compile easily a new kernel with the required driver. did you ever compiled a kernel by yourself?

before you do anything, please add to vmware a virtual ide cdrom drive (the scsi controller should be still available) and boot ploplinux from the ide drive. then post the output of "dmesg > dmesg.txt" and "lspci > lspci.txt" as attachment (see additional post options) here.

regards
elmar

[teadriven]

I've attached the dmesg and lspci outputs as requested. Looking at the lspci, it looks like it is recognising the lsilogic scsi controller, but it never finds the disk.

I haven't built a kernel in many years and I was hoping to get away without building a custom plop linux for my installation media 

I booted an Ubuntu VM I had available and took a look at how it was handling the VMWare disk, and it appears to be using a kernel module called mptspi.

Dan

[Elmar]

bootup again the ploplinux from ide and run "pciprobe"

[teadriven]

It only reported:

Checking for other PCI hardware ...
Loading   .......................................... [snd-ens1371]
ENS1371 0000:02:02.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16

No sign of a disk!
Dan

[Elmar]

ok, i know now whats missing. do you want to wait for the next release, or compile it by yourself?

[teadriven]

That's great!
If you could let me know what is missing and what I need to rebuild, I will attempt to compile it myself. If I fail then I will just have to wait for the next release

Many thanks,
Dan

[Elmar]

you need the /proc/config.gz of a running ploplinux, the kernel src http://www.kernel.org and a linux with a compiler.

extract the kernel src
uncompress config.gz to kernelsrc/.config
run "make menuconfig"
change to drivers / fusion mtp device support
press space until you have a "*" to include the 3 mtp drivers to the kernel
leave the config and run "make && make modules_install"
take the bzImage from arch/x86/boot/bzImage
create a new lib.sqfs with the kernel modules of /lib/modules


regards
elmar

[teadriven]

It works!

I now get an attached device reported in /proc/scsi/scsi and in /proc/scsi/mptspi/0. I also now have a /dev/sda so I can start testing my install script.

Thank you so much for your help and also for producing such a useful little distribution.

Regards,
Dan