This document presents the results of the Linux Compatibility test, which included the testing of these distributions on the SGI 1400L:

• RedHat 6.1 (English)
• RedHat 6.1 (Japanese)
• RedHat 6.0 (English)
• SuSE 6.3 (German)
• SuSE 6.2 (German)
• Mandrake 6.1 (English)
• Mandrake 6.0 (English)
• Debian Linux 2.1 (English)
• TurboLinux Server 4.0 (English)
• TurboLinux 4.0 (Chinese)
• Laser 5, 6.0 (Japanese)
• Laser 5, 6.0 Server Edition (Japanese)
• Alzza Linux 6.0 (Korean)
• X-Team 1.0.1 (Chinese-simplified)

AppLabs' Linux compatibility testing of this system showed the SGI 1400L to be compatible with the above listed Linux distributions. The SGI 1400 is awarded the AppLabs Linux Compatibility mark.

System Configuration
The following table defines the system configuration tested by AppLabs.

System Configuration
SGI 1400L
The BIOS revision	PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0; S450NX BIOS Release 11.0 Build 67

Testing Results
The following table defines the hardware as tested in this system by AppLabs, and provides the pass/fail results.

Test	Comment	Result
Installation Testing
CD-ROM Installation	Depending upon the distribution, the amount of RAM available to initrd must be limited for proper booting of the install kernel. See notes below.	PASSED
NFS Installation		PASSED*
Device Auto Probing		PASSED
System Setup
Kernel Compatibility	N/A	PASSED
LILO Compatibility	N/A	PASSED
XWindows Compatibility	N/A	PASSED
I/O Sanity
Heavy disk I/O Testing	Run for over eight hours	PASSED
Network Server Load Testing	Run for over eight hours	PASSED
Display Adapter
Console Compatibility	N/A	PASSED*
USB Interfaces	N/A	N/A
Serial Ports
Kernel Detection	N/A	PASSED
Setserial Compatibility	N/A	PASSED
Throughput Testing	N/A	PASSED
Parallel Ports
Kernel Detection	N/A	PASSED
Compatibility Testing	N/A	PASSED
Mouse Ports
Kernel Detection	N/A	PASSED
Compatibility Testing	N/A	PASSED
Other
Pointing Device	N/A	PASSED
Keyboard	N/A	PASSED

* See notes below

Hardware Details

The following table defines the hardware configuration details for the tested system.

Hardware Configuration Information
Motherboard and Processor	This system contains 4 Intel Pentium Xeon processors. The processors as tested were clocked at 550MHz. There is 4 GB RAM.
Display Adapters	There is an onboard Cirrus Logic GD5480 display adapter. There is 4 MB of video memory present.
I/O Busses	The system includes a standard floppy drive interface. There are PS/2 style keyboard and mouse ports present. There is one USB port and one ISA slot.
Network Interface	This system contained a Intel EtherExpress 100 network interface built in on the main board.
Included Peripherals	The included CD-ROM drive is an IDE/ATAPI-type. This system was tested with a Microsoft Natural keyboard and a generic 3-button PS/2 mouse.
Miscellaneous Hardware	There are two serial ports present. There is one bi-directional parallel port present. There is one 1.44 megabyte floppy drive present.

Related Notes

Redhat 6.0 - English

1. System must be given the boot parameter of "mem=xxxM" or the system will not boot. The value for "xxx" will depend upon the amount of RAM in your test system. For this system as tested, the value for "xxx" was 960. The user should specify a minimum of 128 for "xxx" and a maximum of 960. This limiting of RAM usually only needs to be done for the installation process: however, depending upon the version of initrd used by the distribution and the amount of RAM in the system, the user may need to have this information in the lilo.conf file as well. The user can boot the system by issuing this command at the boot prompt:

boot: linux mem=xxxM expert

where "xxx" is the amount of RAM the initrd program should accept for booting purposes.

2. Network install: Bootnet.img boot disk along with other recommended install diskettes do not boot properly. Kernel panic results when booting from these disks, thus cannot do a network install. System will install from CDROMs.

3. SMP testing was done using SMP_test while observing xosview under X.

4. Network testing done with the ttcp test program.

5. Printer tested via console with generic printcap file dumped to a connected HP inkjet printer.

SuSE 6.2 - German .

1. SuSE 6.2 does not offer the installation of an SMP kernel, so the user will need to compile an SMP kernel. The user should be sure to first read this page on the SuSE website for specific information on doing this with SuSE 6.2

http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/maddin_smp.html

SMP testing was done using SMP_test while observing xosview in X.

2. Printer tested via console with generic printcap file dumped to a connected HP inkjet printer.

3. There is a known issue with LILO and Large EBDAs (Extended BIOS data area). You will need to have a patched version of LILO which will prevent your machine from locking up when booting.

The patch is available on the SuSE ftp server at:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.2/a1/lilo-21-43.i386.rpm

To install the patch, first remove the lilo which is installed in the SuSE installation process:

rpm -e lilo

Then install the patched LILO from the directory to which the patched version has been downloaded:

rpm -i lilo*.tgz

Be sure to issue the command "lilo" from the command prompt after installing the new lilo program.

Mandrake 6.0 - English

1. System must be given the boot parameter of "mem=xxxM" or the system will not boot. The value for "xxx" will depend upon the amount of RAM in your test system. For this system as tested, the value for "xxx" was 960. The user should specify a minimum of 128 for "xxx" and a maximum of 960. This limiting of RAM usually only needs to be done for the installation process: however, depending upon the version of initrd used by the distribution and the amount of RAM in the system, the user may need to have this information in the lilo.conf file as well. The user can boot the system by issuing this command at the boot prompt:

boot: linux mem=xxxM expert

where "xxx" is the amount of RAM the initrd program should accept for booting purposes.

2. SMP testing was done using SMP_test while observing xosview in X.

3. Network testing done with the ttcp test program.

4. Printer tested via console with generic printcap file dumped to a connected HP inkjet printer.

Mandrake 6.1 - English

1. System must be given the boot parameter of "mem=xxxM" or the system will not boot. The value for "xxx" will depend upon the amount of RAM in your test system. For this system as tested, the value for "xxx" was 960. The user should specify a minimum of 128 for "xxx" and a maximum of 960. This limiting of RAM usually only needs to be done for the installation process: however, depending upon the version of initrd used by the distribution and the amount of RAM in the system, the user may need to have this information in the lilo.conf file as well. The user can boot the system by issuing this command at the boot prompt:

boot: linux mem=xxxM expert

where "xxx" is the amount of RAM the initrd program should accept for booting purposes.

2. There is a problem with setting up X from the Mandrake installer: the onboard video chip information will not be properly written to the /etc/X11/XF86Config file. The user can easily fix this by adding the following two lines to their XF86Config file in the area called Section "Device" for either "Generic VGA" or "My Video Card"

Option "noaccel"

Option "no_bitblt"

Try running X again after adding these two lines and it should startup properly with a readable screen.

Debian Linux 2.1 - English

1. System must be given the boot parameter of "mem=xxxM" or the system will not boot. The value for "xxx" will depend upon the amount of RAM in your test system. For this system as tested, the value for "xxx" was 960. The user should specify a minimum of 128 for "xxx" and a maximum of 960. This limiting of RAM usually only needs to be done for the installation process: however, depending upon the version of initrd used by the distribution and the amount of RAM in the system, the user may need to have this information in the lilo.conf file as well. The user can boot the system by issuing this command at the boot prompt:

boot: mem=xxxM

where "xxx" is the amount of RAM the initrd program should accept for booting purposes.

2. The kernel will need to be re-compiled to attain SMP functionality.

TurboLinux Server 4.0 - English

1. To have the system boot once installed, the user must either pass this command string to the boot prompt:

boot: linux mem=xxxM

where "xxx" is the amount of RAM the initrd program should accept for booting purposes (minimum is 8, maximum is 1332; tester used "mem=960M").

or

alternately, the user can put the following string into the global area (top section) of the lilo.conf file:

append="mem=xxxM"

where "xxx" is the amount of RAM the initrd program should accept for booting purposes (minimum is 8, maximum is 1332).

Laser 5 - Japanese

1. System must be given the boot parameter of "mem=xxxM" or the system will not boot. The value for "xxx" will depend upon the amount of RAM in your test system. For this system as tested, the value for "xxx" was 960. The user should specify a minimum of 128 for "xxx" and a maximum of 960. This limiting of RAM usually only needs to be done for the installation process: however, depending upon the version of initrd used by the distribution and the amount of RAM in the system, the user may need to have this information in the lilo.conf file as well. The user can boot the system by issuing this command at the boot prompt:

boot: linux mem=xxxM expert

where "xxx" is the amount of RAM the initrd program should accept for booting purposes.

2. A secondary DNS server will need to be added manually after install since the installation doesn't correctly write a secondary entry to disk.

Laser 5 Server 6.0 - Japanese

1. System must be given the boot parameter of "mem=xxxM" or the system will not boot. The value for "xxx" will depend upon the amount of RAM in your test system. For this system as tested, the value for "xxx" was 960. The user should specify a minimum of 128 for "xxx" and a maximum of 960. This limiting of RAM usually only needs to be done for the installation process: however, depending upon the version of initrd used by the distribution and the amount of RAM in the system, the user may need to have this information in the lilo.conf file as well. The user can boot the system by issuing this command at the boot prompt:

boot: linux mem=xxxM expert

where "xxx" is the amount of RAM the initrd program should accept for booting purposes.

2. SMP testing was done using SMP_test while observing top.

3. Display adapter was tested via console observation only since the install process doesn't install an X driver. Since the video chip and corresponding X driver are very common, there should be no problem using X on this system but the users are advised against running X on a connected server for security reasons.

4. Mouse tested with gpm on the console.

5. Network testing done with the ttcp test program.

6. Printer tested via console with generic printcap file dumped to a connected HP inkjet printer.

X-Team 1.0.1 - Chinese (Simplified)

1. Kernel will have to be re-compiled for SMP.

2. Although the distribution as a whole passes, the user is advised that the network install with X-team Linux failed because the distribution only allows installs from the CD-ROM.

Legal

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