IBM Intellistation M-Pro Testing Notes

IBM IntelliStation M-Pro 6889
Linux Compatibility Testing Notes
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The following information is provided to give you an understanding of the pre- and post-installation, installation, set up, and other tasks preformed in conjunction with and in preparation for the Linux Compatibility Testing of the IBM IntelliStation M-Pro system conducted by KeyLabs. In the event you choose to conduct a similar test, this information will help insure you conduct the test following the same pre-test procedures followed by KeyLabs.

Pre-installation Notes

Installation Notes

All the core devices in this system were automatically detected by the installation media.

SuSE Linux 6.1
CD-Rom installation - successful
NFS installation - successful

TurboLinux
CD-Rom installation - successful
NFS installation - successful

Caldera OpenLinux 2.2
Lizard CD-ROM installation method--successful. Installation must be performed using the Lisa Floppy disk and the lisa modules disk, rather than the Lizard installer on the CD-ROM.
LISA floppy disk NFS installation method--successful.

Post-installation Setup Notes

Caldera OpenLinux 2.2
Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 includes kernel 2.2.5. It needed no upgrades for full compatibility.

TurboLinux 3.6
TurboLinux includes kernel 2.2.9.

SuSE
SuSE includes kernel 2.2.5 It needed no upgrades for full compatibility

When compiling the kernel, consider the following:

It is not necessary for the functionality of the system to enable Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers" option. It is not needed for system functionality.
Disable kernel math emulation.
Enable PCI BIOS support.
Set the processor type to Pentium.
Enable SMP support.
Enable normal floppy disk support.
Enable Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL disk/cdrom/tape/floppy support.
Enable Include IDE/ATAPI CDROM support.
Enable SCSI support and support for SCSI hard disk drives.
Enable the AIC7xxx device driver as a low-level SCSI device driver within the kernel
Enable Network Device support, Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit) support and enable the driver.
Do not enable ISDN support. (No ISDN devices were included in the configuration used by KeyLabs for testing, so ISDN support was not enabled.)
Enable standard/generic serial support, support for a non-serial mouse, and PS/2 mouse (also known as an "auxiliary device") support.

Other Notes

Caldera OpenLinux 2.2
The network card will be successfully detected only after loading the modules floppy.

Recommended Reading

If you are inexperienced with linux configuration, you may want to visit the Linux Documentation Project web pages at http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP. In particular, you might want to read both the Installation HOWTO and the Kernel HOWTO documents.