Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Quick Search: in
sgi octane2 R12K gentoo ---> PCI CAGE boards
View unanswered posts
View posts from last 24 hours

 
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Gentoo on Alternative Architectures
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
ddc
Guru
Guru


Joined: 29 Aug 2006
Posts: 525

PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:57 am    Post subject: sgi octane2 R12K gentoo ---> PCI CAGE boards Reply with quote

hi,
sgi octane/octane2 could be equipped with a PCI cage, a special unit that makes the machine able to accept PCI boards.
V6 gfx is good enought to be used as text console, but it is not supported as Xfb device: so no X11 on V6.

The idea is to use a matrox m1 or matrox m2, or a voodoo2 pci board plugged in the pci cage.
Also it should be nice to add an USB/firewire/sata support for the octane.

isn't it ?

so, i'm opening this thread to report the hardware that is known to be well running on octane-pci-cage.

Feel free to post about it, or to post about the not working hardware.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ddc
Guru
Guru


Joined: 29 Aug 2006
Posts: 525

PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

about the pci-cage, in kernel sources you can read


Code:

sys-kernel/mips-sources-2.6.17.10
Things to keep in mind when building a kernel for an SGI Octane:
- Impact (MGRAS) console and X driver work, please report any bugs.
- VPro (Odyssey) console works, but no X driver exists yet.
- PCI Card Cages should work for many devices, except certain types like
PCI-to-PCI bridges (USB hubs, USB flash card readers for example).
- Do not use OHCI-based USB cards in Octane. They're broke on this machine.
Patches are welcome to fix the issue.
- Equally, UHCI Cards are showing issues in this release, but should still
function somewhat. This issue manifests itself when using pl2303 USB->Serial
adapters.
- Other XIO-based devices like MENET and various Impact addons remain
untested and are not guaranteed to work. This applies to various
digital video conversion boards as well.



i've putted a matrox m2 inside this PCI-XIO bridge, dmesg is reporting that matroxfb: probe of 0001:01:01.0 has failed with an error.


Code:

PCI: Failed to allocate mem resource #1:800000@1d800000 for 0001:01:01.0
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
fakephp: Fake PCI Hot Plug Controller Driver
BRIDGE: Memory #0, size 0x4000 for little-endian 0001:01:01.0 --> direct 32-bit at bus 0x01000000 vma 0x000000d041000000
BRIDGE: Memory #6, size 0x10000 for little-endian 0001:01:01.0 --> direct 32-bit at bus 0x01010000 vma 0x000000d041010000
matroxfb: Matrox Millennium (PCI) detected
matroxfb: video RAM is not available in PCI address space, matroxfb disabled
matroxfb: probe of 0001:01:01.0 failed with error -1


Last edited by ddc on Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:25 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Pliablemammal
n00b
n00b


Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Posts: 52
Location: Sacramento

PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 9:38 am    Post subject: google for it, it's selling somewhere online for $58 Reply with quote

I found it about 3 weeks ago on google for $58 - WAAAAYYY less than any of the people on eBay have had it for. If their is good support this would open up things like USB / Firewire support which would totally kick ass.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
e-ipi
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Posts: 192

PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 6:02 pm    Post subject: Re: google for it, it's selling somewhere online for $58 Reply with quote

Pliablemammal wrote:
I found it about 3 weeks ago on google for $58 - WAAAAYYY less than any of the people on eBay have had it for. If their is good support this would open up things like USB / Firewire support which would totally kick ass.


People have done USB with the pci cardcage. Unless I'm mistaken, there were/are problems with USB storage. My solution for the USB storage problem is to plug usb devices into my laptop. I can then access them remotely through the gigabit ethernet card in the pci adapter.

$58.00 (US?) is a good deal for a pci cardcage. I had to get a whole 'nother Octane to get mine. It was a good deal, too, but I think I would have gone the $58.00 dollar route had I known about it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ddc
Guru
Guru


Joined: 29 Aug 2006
Posts: 525

PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:19 pm    Post subject: Re: google for it, it's selling somewhere online for $58 Reply with quote

Quote:

People have done USB with the pci cardcage. Unless I'm mistaken, there were/are problems with USB storage. My solution for the USB storage problem is to plug usb devices into my laptop. I can then access them remotely through the gigabit ethernet card in the pci adapter.


hi,
modern computers can use SAN and NAS solutions about storage
- SAN (Storage Area Network)
- NAS (Network Attached Storage)


to do NFS, i'm using my embedded walnut-ppc405 (it costs < $100) , equipped with a native ATA controller, and with 2 PCI slot where i plugged a PCI-2-sata (gentoo is running on this board, this means we could have a good support for all the pci devices supported on the linux kernel tree)


So i can add sata disk to my octane2 using NFS, but we are speaking about an home-made tini-NAS that is working with 10/100Mbit ehernet connection, all based on gentoo

this is not the best solution i aim for: i really want to use the pci cardcage with a sata and usb card inside :)

in the future, with a good pci cardcage we will do.

(and we also add a matrox or vodoo, making us abled to use X11 on ocatne2)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
legacy
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 10 Sep 2012
Posts: 144

PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 12:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

anybody experiment success with some pci-usb cards ? if so which chips ?

VIA ?
NEC ?
ALI ?

Which model ?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
legacy
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 10 Sep 2012
Posts: 144

PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i got great success with the NEC PCI USB
i had to hack the kernel 2.6.17.14 a bit
(all kernels > .17 are simply not working)
but now i have an USB hard drive pretty working :D
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Gentoo on Alternative Architectures All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum