Hyperion Entertainment Message Boards

Hello dear Linux friends,

If I want to boot a Linux SSD from my sii3512 PCI card, what would be my UBoot environment variable settings to enter? Instead of sata 0: 1 or sata 1: 1, I write... what?

When we try to understand the UBoot variables, in particular the pci variable, we understand that any pci port is identified by an identifier code. As with the identification of the sata ports, it should be possible to boot an SSD disk from a correctly identified pci port.

The problem now is to know which port of my pci device corresponds to the correct identifier detected by UBoot. In my case, my sii3512 device has two pci ports. I deduce that my pci device is assigned to bus 1 which is the only one to have the two ports of my sii3512 device, identified respectively 0x683d and 0xaab0.
I wouldn't want to do any damage and would prefer to have confirmation of my reasoning...

@ Amiguy

I am very rusty but let me attempt to point you in the right direction.

The important thing is booting the kernel.
The kernel needs to be booted from a device supported by the X5000.
So USB thumbdrive, Onboard MicroSD card or drive attached to the onboard p5020sata.device or TFTP server .

The device to boot the linux installation from once the kernel is booted is passed to the linux kernel
via a U-Boot variable in the format "root=/dev/sdx1" were x is the letter assigned to the SATA controller
that you want to boot from.
To find that controller letter you would have to boot in the usual manner with the controller card
that you will want to boot from in the future installed.

Of course the kernel that you are booting from will have to have support for the other SATA controller
built in. I used a PCIex1 SATA 3 controller and it worked well.

Thank you for considering my question. There is surely something obvious that I do not understand. Let's try to see things more clearly...

My goal is to connect a Linux SSD drive to one of the ports on my PCI card and boot the Linux kernel from my card. The PCI card is connected to the motherboard via a port marked "PCI 1". This card has two connection ports marked "J1" and "J2" (see photo).
When I use one of the ports on the motherboard marked SATA0 (the other is marked SATA1), I run Linux boot via the commands :

X5000> setenv linuxboot 'setenv bootargs root=/dev/sda2 ; load sata 0:1 1000000 uImage-4.18 ; load sata 0:1 2000000 cyrus.dtb ; bootm 1000000 - 2000000'

X5000> run linuxboot

But if I want to boot from the PCI card and assume that my "load sata 0:1" instruction is for the SATA port on my motherboard, what would be the instructions for the PCI card?

You can’t load and boot a kernel from a connected HD to your PCI card. You can load and boot the kernel from a USB stick, onboard MicroSD card or a drive attached to the onboard SATA device and use a root file system from a HD connected to your PCI card.

The dtb file has to load from a USB stick, onboard MicroSD card or a drive attached to the onboard SATA device too.

OK, clear answer : booting from PCI card does not work on Linux.

Thank you my friend.

Amiguy wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:20 am OK, clear answer : booting from PCI card does not work on Linux.

Booting Linux from a Sii3512 would not be wise anyway as these old Sii cards are only Sata1! They are working 50% slower than the onboard Sata2 controller, and as Linux is very disk intensive OS that would make it slow to load and sluggish to use.

The best boot option for X5000 is to buy a fast PCIe Sata3 controller (see viewtopic.php?p=52922#p52922) and load the Linux partition from a 6G SSD connected to it, and the Kernel from the BootSD (you need a X5040 to get the full speed of a Sata3 controller, though). The onboard Sata2 controller can then be freely used with AmigaOS and MorphOS.

Hi Roland,

Roland wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 11:19 am Booting Linux from a Sii3512 would not be wise anyway as these old Sii cards are only Sata1!

Yes, indeed, this card is so slow that it can do a lot of damage. I experienced it again this weekend. This PCI card is absolutely to be banned.

Roland wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 11:19 am The best boot option for X5000 is to buy a fast PCIe Sata3 controller

Unfortunately the Delock card is no longer available in France. I will therefore be content to use the link with the motherboard. So I will have to swap the cables between the Linux and Amiga disks. It's safer, but less comfortable .

Amiguy wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 8:20 pm Yes, indeed, this card is so slow that it can do a lot of damage. I experienced it again this weekend. This PCI card is absolutely to be banned.

You are right. The sad thing is that there is not yet AmigaOS drivers for any other Sata cards .

Roland wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 11:19 am Unfortunately the Delock card is no longer available in France. I will therefore be content to use the link with the motherboard. So I will have to swap the cables between the Linux and Amiga disks. It's safer, but less comfortable .

Have you looked at the pages of Kalea-informatique...? Their products should be well available in France. This one is probably closest to the Delock card mentioned (both has a Marvell controller chip):

https://www.kalea-informatique.com/cart ... 0-naa2.htm

I would have wanted to buy from them a combined Sata3 - USB 6G card but they are currently out of stock. It would be nice to have a couple of fast USB ports, too...

Wouaou, thank you very much for your research . I had not seen the Kalea site.

I wonder though. I was using this card to plug in my DVD player. However, I probably could not get the player to work on the Amiga anymore, since I would not have a driver for the card.