any linux distro compatible with Nvidia RAID?

[Insomniak4700]

Hello everyone, most distros I find are not compatible with Nvidia stripe set raids...

Ubuntu won't detect it - I found instructions for installing with dmraid, but my partition table got killed by fdisk!
had to use recovery software.. not pleasant..

Mint look extremly cool.. but based on Ubuntu.

PCLinus OS detects the raid array no problem, but the installer won't use it!
and there does not seem to be a manual procedure to do the installation. Too bad, I love this distro on liveCD... KDE... incredibly fast.....

Can anyone help? I'm not ready to kill off my XP install, and doing a backup/restore of all of my data currently on raid is a hell of a job.

Thanks!

[Nitemare]

Ubuntu can install in windows. Pop in the Live CD and an installer should run. If it doesn't work out: Add/Remove programs and get rid of it. It wil alter your boot-up sequesnce, allowing you to choose linux or XP. This might get you around your problem.

I don't have Nvidia, but I have a raid setup running Fedora 8... you might try that.

[Insomniak4700]

The problem is Ubuntu dosen't recognize the raid controller, so dosen't recognize my hard drives.


I'm surprised so little Linux distros recognize these controllers, since most modern motherboards have "fake raid" built-in

I'll have a look at Fedora..

[GMaq]

Hi,

Which Ubuntu did you try? On my system with RAID the latest "8.04 Hardy Heron" won't install either but the former version "Gutsy Gibbon 7.10" will with no issues.

This is an issue that Ubuntu (and others) need to get on top of immediately, new users coming from other OS's are not going to be amused with having to figure out which "cheatcode" to enter, (if any work) to try a LiveCD!

Please report back about Fedora if it works, Thanks

[RickA]

Greets,

Total Linux newb here. Just started playing with Mint this past week. I have slipstreamed different versions of Windows to include drivers for my nVidia RAID with nLite before. Great program. Could there be a chance that such a program exists for Linux as well? Don't have it installed at the moment or know if nLite will work for Linux. Either in Linux or via Windows. Or how you would find find the appropriate drivers / kernel to slipstream into the new install disk. Just a thought.

Cheers,
Rick

[Nitemare]

There is a program in Mint (once installed) that allows you to make your own install disks including whatever packages you've bothered to install for yourself. AptonCD or somehting like that? (sorry... in Windows right now)

Essentially, you can build your linux flavor the way you want it, and then make an install CD including all of those packages and dependencies. For example: Mint doesn't come with MythTV... but since I've downloaded and installed those packages, "MY" Mint cd could now have it pre-packaged.

I'm not sure how well this works with drivers. Its not a backup CD, but an install CD with all of your chosen packages included, I believe. I haven't actually had time to make a CD and then install it somewhere.

[tekkieman]

There is a program in Mint (once installed) that allows you to make your own install disks including whatever packages you've bothered to install for yourself. AptonCD or somehting like that? (sorry... in Windows right now)

Essentially, you can build your linux flavor the way you want it, and then make an install CD including all of those packages and dependencies. .

Many distros include that now. My main desktop runs PCLOS 2008 "MiniMe" which comes with almost no applications by default (and installs in just under 5minutes too). From there, I customize it with the apps I typically use, then use their "re-master me" script to create a new ISO for all the other systems I want to install on, complete with my favorite apps.

[Insomniak4700]

Mint looks pretty nice too... to be honest I haven't tried them all because my current ISP is capped (cable). I just switched to an unlimited DSL today, to I'll try a few more distros (downloading Fedora now) and will let you know.

I've played around with Arch Linux yesterday... coudn't get it to run with dmraid, but I used a spare computer to play around with it.... very very very cool... it dosen't have a lot of stuff preloaded like Ubuntu, but it's lean and mean.... It seems there is a RAID how to, but haven't got around to trying it

If the RAID how-to works nice, I just might go with Arch.. remind me of slackware when I was using back in 1995... (I remember building KDE manually!). What I also liked is that it uses a BSD-like init system, and config files are not scattered all over the file system.

[disturbed1]

NVRaid is not supported in Linux because it is not a hardware controller. Only true hard ware raid devices like those from Promise are truly supported. NVRaid is a software raid implementation. Use software raid.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=50319
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_with_NVRAID_using_dmraid

[Insomniak4700]

nvraid is supported in Linux via DMRAID but I need to find a distro that can load dmraid before the install, and that dosen't try to do everything for you.

ex: PClinux OS will see my "fake" raid no problem... but the installer script does not let you do any customization....

I found the how-to for Arch... how do you like it so far disturbed??
it's pretty addictive Haven't toyed around with any video software yet..

[disturbed1]

I need to change my profile

Arch was too volatile for me. Updates/upgrades everyday, got kind of tired of it after a few weeks, bitching like little school girls on public mailing list . Moved back to Slackware. It's the first Linux Distro my girlfriend has actually liked well enough to go ahead and delete (finally)her Windows partition

Usually when I see questions about NVRaid (Fake Raid, Software Raid), it deals with a user that created an array in Windows, and is attempting to access the Windows data from inside Linux. DMRaid is software raid, and allows that - that is, a Linux/Windows created fake raid array to be read by other OS's.

Read through the Gentoo wiki link I posted above, lots of info there. I know Gentoo supports DMRaid at install time. Most people just use mdadm, that way if you choose to reinstall, or need to recover, it is better supported at install time, across Linux Distros that is.

As far as seeing the array during install time, I don't know. I do know that once the system is installed, it's usually just a simple task of appending a few lines to Grub or LILO, providing you have the DMRaid modules installed.