This is a PCI card that has two UDMA channels on it, supporting up to four drives. You can look up specification & pricing at http://www.promise.com.
This card shipped in early model Gateway 2000 Pentium II systems, and may or may not be in more recent models.
The more recent development kernels (current is 2.1.108) have generic PCI IDE controller support, which automatically detects the Promise Ultra33. However, the stable kernels (current is 2.0.34) require a patch, and it can be a little difficult to get Linux installed because of this.
Although there is a patch for the Promise controller, it is not very easy to apply a patch and recompile your kernel if you have not installed Linux yet! So, here is a workaround which allows you to install. Thanks to Gadi Oxman for the following information on getting the interface settings:
If we can access the console with the installation disk, we can also
use "cat /proc/pci" to display the Promise interface settings:
RAID bus controller: Promise Technology Unknown device (rev 1).
Vendor id=105a. Device id=4d33.
Medium devsel. IRQ 12. Master Capable. Latency=32.
I/O at 0xe000. (a)
I/O at 0xd804. (b)
I/O at 0xd400. (c)
I/O at 0xd004. (d)
I/O at 0xc800. (e)
and pass "ide2=a,b+2 ide3=c,d+2" as a command line parameter to the kernel.
Note that the numbers probably are not the same as what you will have.
Just as an example, the parameters to use for the above set of numbers
would be ``ide2=0xe000,0xd806 ide3=0xd400,0xd006''. You can also
specify the IRQ, which would make it
``ide2=0xe000,0xd806,12 ide3=0xd400,0xd006,12''.
If you are only using the first channel on the Promise controller (for
instance, if you only have one drive, or two if they are master and slave on
the same channel, on the Promise), then you won't need to specify ide3.
Red Hat 5.1: Boot with the boot diskette and press enter when prompted.
The kernel will load, and then you will be asked for a language, keyboard
type, and installation method. You may be prompted for additional information
about the source media; it doesn't matter right now what you tell it as long
as you can get to the next step. Next you should see a screen titled
``Select Installation Path''; press Alt-F2 now to get to a command prompt.
Run ``cat /proc/pci'', write down
the numbers as above, and reboot from the boot disk. This time, type
``linux ide2= (this is where you put the numbers like shown
above) ide3=(more numbers)''. It should now be able to install
onto your hard disk without difficulty, however LILO will probably not be able to
install; instead make a boot floppy and boot it with the same parameters
until you can patch LILO and and the kernel.
Under Red Hat 5.0, use the installation boot floppy, and at the
boot prompt type ``rescue''. It will load the kernel, prompt you for the
supplemental disk, ask you about your monitor and keyboard, and finally put
you into a command prompt. Then, run ``cat /proc/pci'', write down
the numbers as above, and reboot from the boot disk. This time, type
``linux ide2=(this is where you put the numbers like shown
above) ide3=(more numbers)''. It should now be able to install
onto your hard disk without difficulty except for LILO; you will need to boot
the system from the installation boot disk temporarily.
Under Slackware 3.4, the process is very similar. Boot with the
boot disk of your choice, and at the boot prompt, just hit Enter for now.
It will load the kernel and prompt for the root disk. Insert the root disk,
wait for it to load, and log in as root. Run ``cat /proc/pci''
and write down those numbers. Reboot with the boot
floppy and at the boot prompt type ``ramdisk ide2=(this is where you
put the numbers)
ide3=(some more numbers)''. You should then be able to install onto your
hard disk as normal, except for LILO which will need to be patched; create and
use a boot floppy for now.
With another Linux distribution you will have to improvise a bit, but the process should be about the same as the above.
IMPORTANT: Without the patch (discussed in the
section
Patching for the Promise), the
kernel needs these boot parameters in order to access your hard
disk! Therefore it is very important that when you configure LILO, either on
the hard disk or on a boot floppy, that you give it the exact same
parameters that you gave when installing. Otherwise your system won't
boot! It should be possible to give them to LILO when you boot (ie, press
Shift, type in ``linux ide2=.....'' each time you boot), but only
if you kept the numbers! It is recommended that you patch your kernel as soon
as possible so you will not have to worry about that anymore; once you are
booting with a patched kernel, you can get rid of the boot parameters. Also,
as far as I know there is no way to pass boot parameters to a plain kernel
boot floppy (as made with ``make zdisk''), you must use LILO or
another loader (such as LOADLIN) that lets you pass boot parameters.
However, unpatched kernels and installation programs often have a difficult time actually using ide2 and ide3, even if the drives are detected properly. This is known to be a problem with Slackware 3.4 and Red Hat 5.0, but Red Hat 5.1 seems to be alright. So if you can't get Linux to install using the above technique, try specifying ide0 or ide1 instead of ide2 or ide3 (thanks to Martin Gaitan for this technique). This essentially replaces the on-board controller with the Promise Ultra33 as far as the kernel is concerned, and you can follow the directions in the next section as if you had physically moved it. Note that if you're using an IDE CD-ROM drive connected to your on-board controller to install from, you will want to make sure that you do not take over the controller that the CD is on or you will not be able to install! If the CD is hda or hdb, use ide1 for your hard drive, and if it is hdc or hdd, then use ide0.
If you cannot get the software workaround to work, you will have to try a more brute force approach. Here's an alternative method that is virtually guaranteed to work, but will require you to open up your computer and mess about in it. NOTE: If you are not familiar with the process of connecting and disconnecting IDE drives, read the manuals that came with your computer, your hard drive, and/or the Promise Ultra33 before attempting this! If you screw something up and don't know how to put it back, you could end up being sorry!
That being said, it's all really quite simple. Most motherboards these days have built-in EIDE controllers. Disconnect your hard drive from the Ultra33 and connect it to the onboard controller. If you have other IDE devices, such as a CD-ROM, tape, or ZIP drive, on your oboard controller, it is easiest if you either add the hard drive on an unused channel (the secondary instead of the primary) or temporarily displace a device that you don not need immediately (such as ZIP or tape). Install Linux. Download and apply the Promise UDMA patch (see next section).
Now you are ready to move the drive back onto the Promise... almost. To be
safe, make a kernel-image boot floppy (cd /usr/src/linux ; make
zdisk), which you will be able to use to boot your system in case LILO
doesn't work. Actually, to be very safe, make two and put one away for
now.
Okay, now it is time
to think a little... if you have just one hard drive and it is going to be on
the Promise, then it will most likely be /dev/hde (a and
b are for the primary
onboard controller, c and d for the secondary onboard controller).
If you are going to put any other drives on it, then the slave of the
Promise's first channel will be /dev/hdf, the master of the second
will be /dev/hdg, and the slave of the second will be
/dev/hdh.
Edit /etc/fstab, and change all the partitions of the hard drives
you are moving from the onboard drives (/dev/hda, hdb,
etc) to their new locations on the Promise (/dev/hde, hdf,
etc). If you had to displace any devices (such as a CD-ROM or ZIP drive)
that you want to leave on the onboard controller, then change them to their
new locations as well. For instance, if your CD-ROM was originally the
master on the primary channel (/dev/hda), but you put your hard disk
there and had to bump the CD to the slave (/dev/hdb) or to the
secondary channel (/dev/hdc), and now you want to put it back, then
change it to /dev/hda.
If you are using LILO, reconfigure LILO to use the new location of the drive
(LILO configuration is beyond the scope of this document, if you do not know
how, read the
LILO mini-HOWTO),
or else it probably will not be able to boot unless you use that boot floppy
I had you make, which you will also want to configure to boot off the new
partition. This is done using the rdev command. Put the floppy in the
drive and type ``rdev /dev/fd0 /dev/hde1''. Of course that's assuming
your root partition is the first on your first UDMA drive. If not (mine is
/dev/hde7, for instance), then obviously use the appropriate
partition number!
Reboot. Your system should now work fine.
There is a kernel patch available for the Promise Ultra33, written by Gadi Oxman ( gadio@netvision.net.il).
A patch for kernel 2.0.34 is available here; a patch is not necessary for kernels 2.0.35 (in pre-release as of this writing) or later. If you are using an older kernel version it is recommended that you upgrade; older kernels contain a number of bugs including security flaws. Red Hat users, note that the 2.0.34 kernel included with Red Hat 5.1 is a pre-release version and should be upgraded as well. Clean copies of the kernel source to patch against are available from ftp.kernel.org.
For instructions on how to patch and compile the kernel, please refer to the Kernel HOWTO.
Once the patch is applied, DMA transfers can be enabled like so:
One advantage of using the kernel patch is that we will be able to use
bus mastering DMA transfers ("hdparm -d1 /dev/hdx") in case the triton
driver is compiled into the kernel.
This should be done automatically on 2.0.34 and above, but in some cases it may not be.
Note that you can use ``hdparm -Tt /dev/hdx'' to test the hard disk transfer
speeds. About 9.5 MB/s is typical for UDMA drives.
You will also need a patch to LILO if you wish to use LILO to boot; you can get the LILO source from ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/boot/lilo/lilo-20.tar.gz and the patch from http://pobox.com/~brion/linux/lilo-promise.patch.