[lug] Rectal/Cranial Inversion Issues at RedHat (and LILO)

[Chris M]

I'm having some LILO problems with a new RAID system.  The hardware card is 
on the supported hardware list, and other 5.2 systems are running with it fine.

The RH6 upgrade on this 5.2 system went horribly, missing shared libs, 
etc.  It wasn't worth dealing with, so I did a complete install after 
that.  When I tried to do the LILO portion of the install it wouldn't allow 
writing to the boot sector or the / filesystem.  So I booted from a floppy 
to attempt to resolve this.

Here is what happens when I run lilo

[root at host]# /sbin/lilo
Warning: device 0x0809 exceeds 1024 cylinder limit
geo_comp_addr: Cylinder number is too big (2133 > 1023)
[root at host]# df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda9               575319     41748    503853   8% /
/dev/sda6              2307072    811685   1376106  37% /db
/dev/sda5             10321428    722334   9063328   7% /home
/dev/sda8               583091    215046    337925  39% /tmp
/dev/sda7              1849224    606245   1147394  35% /usr
/dev/sda1              1383377      7419   1304471   1% /var
[root at host]# cat /etc/lilo.conf
boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-15smp
         label=linux
         root=/dev/sda9
         initrd=/boot/initrd-2.2.5-15smp.img
         read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.5-15
         label=linux-up
         root=/dev/sda9
         initrd=/boot/initrd-2.2.5-15.img
         read-only
[root at host]#

Anyone see any issues here?

The funny part of this (the rectal/cranial inversion) is that I called 
RedHat for support, and was told I'd need commercial support. OK.  So I 
went to the per-incident area of their site.  At $225/incident it seems to 
me it would be cheaper to buy a new CD for $90 and then call in for more 
help.  Wonder what the thinking is here?

Every time I have called RedHat they have given me the wrong answer on 
whether this RAID card is supported or not.  It is definitely supported, it 
is on their list.  But the phonebots can't get past the word "RAID" and 
immediately start with the sphincter spasms.  Hmm.

Thanks for any ideas.

Chris