[Server-devel] Debian installed on M2A690G machine

[Tony Pearson]

Greg,
This weekend I confirmed that I can install Debian 4.0-r3 on the M2A690G 
machine.

This is my first exposure to Debian, but I can see why so many people like 
it.  I used the 32-bit "net install" CD.  This is a small 180MB file on CD 
that boots, then gets most of the applications over the internet, so it 
always has the most updated files.  The normal process is to install 
entirely from CD, then once up and running, download all the updates from 
the internet.

The install also lets you install LVM as part of the install process. 
Strangely, it created the following

/dev/sda1   --- /boot
/dev/sda2  -- LVM2  (contains  /  and swap)

/dev/sdb1  -- 250MB ext3 not assigned
/dev/sdb2 -- LVM2

It is possible that /dev/sdb1 is set-aside as /boot copy, and that 
sda2/sdb2 could be configured as an LVM mirror.  For now, I will assume 
that if we can get everything working on /dev/sda, we can then worry about 
making it mirrored to /dev/sdb.

I installed both "web+db" and "desktop+web+db"  the latter took about 
30-45 minutes longer for all the GNOME packages, but it was nice to see 
the desktop GUI is very similar to Ubuntu and easy to use.  They even have 
a "Root Terminal" option, eliminating the need to do "sudo sh" on the 
regular "terminal".

The "lspci" is slightly different:
-------
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 7910
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 7912
00:07.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 7917
00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 SMBus (rev 13)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Azalia
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] 
Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 
791e
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B 
PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01)
03:05.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. 
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
03:06.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. 
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
03:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host 
Controller (rev c0)
------------

Note, first three lines indicate "Unknown device", whereas under Ubuntu 
they were recognized.  Also, line 20 (01:05.0) does not recognize the 
Radeon X1200, and instead says "Unknown device 791e".

When I did "dmesg | grep pci", I got the following:
-----------
ACPI: bus type pci registered
PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq".  If it helps, post a 
report
pcie_portdrv_probe->Dev[7917:1002] has invalid IRQ. Check vendor BIOS
Allocate Port Service[0000:00:07.0:pcie00]
Allocate Port Service[0000:00:07.0:pcie03]
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
----------

The "pcie_portdrv_probe" line gets "invalid IRQ" no matter what I did.   I 
tried boot parms pci=noacpi, pci=nomsi, acpi=noirq.  I tried changing the 
BIOS setting from PCI=[Auto] to [Manual].  I even set "Plug N Play OS" to 
both YES and NO.  The forums seem to indicate that this probably can be 
ignored.

I tried booting in both BIOS SATA=IDE and AHCI mode, and got nearly 
identical results, so it appears Debian is "ahci-aware" in the kernel. The 
forums seem to imply that AHCI is the better choice, and that IDE is 
designed for older software compatability.

Selecting desktop+web+db means it installs and sets up as default running 
Apache 2.2.3 and PostqreSQL 7.4, I confirmed both were running 
successfully.  I also created a small "index.php" to run ?phpinfo() and 
confirmed that PHP is at 5.2.0-8 +etch11.  I went on MoodleDocs and found 
that Moodle supports Debian and PostgreSQL, but did not bother trying to 
do a full Moodle installation.  I just wanted to make sure what BIOS 
settings we should have, and whether there would be any issue with a 
Fedora XS / Debian dual-boot environment.  So far, everything checks out.

Next step:
I will wipe the system clean, and install Fedora 7 from the 
i386-install-DVD.

-- Tony
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