After doing some research online, it looks like the Promise ATA100 TX2 will work all hunky dorey with no monkeying about in the 2.4.20 kernel. This will be a joy to me, as trying to get the onboard RAID driver working in linux was sending me into conniptions.
Newegg is shuttling 2 of them my way as I type because all my local stores want to introduce new orifices to my body for these cards. Everywhere in town is about $20 over priced. I also ordered 5 round ATA cables to keep things relatively clean in all this mess.
When I called Fry’s today to see if they had the Promise card, it went something like this:
Me: Hello, I’m calling to see if you have a specific ATA card in stock
Pimple faced monkey boy: Yeah we have ATA cards.
Me: Yes, I know, I’m looking for one in particular, a Promise 100 TX2
Pimple faced monkey boy: Well, we have a lot of ATA cards here (long pause)
Me: I know. I’m looking for this one in particular. Can you tell me if you have it and how much it is?
Pimple faced monkey boy: (no answer)
Me: Hello? (Waits for 10 seconds or so) Hello?
Pimple faced monkey boy: What card was it?
Me: Promise 100TX2
Pimple faced monkey boy: No we don’t
He was actively trying to get rid of me on the call, which hey, I’m down with. I’ve been there. But you know what? I’m not some annoying prick who’s going to ask you questions about the card, how to install it and yadda yadda yadda, I just want to know if you have it and how much it is. So then I’m not coming down there pissed off cause some monkey boy won’t tell me then I have to track down said monkey boy in person and bug them. I mean shit, your inventory computer is RIGHT BY THE PHONE. It takes like 5 seconds. So to newegg I go.
My Radeon 9200 is also not working properly, after following the instructions on this page, it still doesn’t work in anything but vesa mode. I don’t really care as I don’t need it to do anything more than let me set the box up, but it adds to the frustration. Apparently in newer versions of Xfree, the problem is not there, but I am way too new at this to know how to update Xfree on Redhat. Ohh how I miss fink. I love fink. Fink update all. So simple. So nice.
So does anyone know if you can use Disk Druid any other time than in the install? If not, why not? They figure that the only time you can really use a GUI disk partitioning utility is when you first load the OS? WTF?