Appendix A:

Appendix A:

Installing Hardware

This appendix covers:

"Supported hardware"
"Hardware compatibility issues"
"Configuring installation hardware"

Supported hardware

SCO is constantly adding support for additional hardware devices. Check the Compatible Hardware Web Pages at http://www.sco.com/chwp to see if the hardware you are using is currently supported on Release 7.1.4. If you need to download an updated or new driver, this site will tell you where to get it.

For hardware limitations and workarounds, see the Support Library at http://www.sco.com/support and the Late News documentation site for Release 7.1.4 at http://www.sco.com/support/docs.

The Release 7.1.4 online documentation served locally at http://localhost:8458 also lists new hardware support at the time of product release in the New Features and Notes section.

Hardware compatibility issues

Except where noted, the hardware described in UnixWare documentation has been tested. However, because the manufacturers of compatible machines or add-on peripherals may change configuration, functionality, or firmware at any time, no guarantee is implied.

To determine whether hardware components are compatible with your machine, you must know the processor (for example, Pentium II, Pentium III, AMD) and the bus architecture (ISA, EISA, MCA and PCI) that it uses. You should also be aware of the type of disk controller in your system.

If you have added any adapters, make sure that all switches or software-controlled settings are set as recommended in the manufacturer's hardware manual for that board. Some hardware requires specific switches or software-controlled settings to work with UnixWare 7. If your hardware does not work with UnixWare 7 with the settings as shipped, contact the hardware manufacturer for the proper settings. Hardware compatibility issues known to The SCO Group can be found in the resources listed in the section "Supported hardware".

Configuring installation hardware

UnixWare 7 automatically determines the correct hardware settings for EISA, MCA, and PCI hardware devices needed to install the system. If you have an ISA device, or the devices in your system have hardware conflicts such as duplicate interrupt vectors, you need to enter the Device Configuration Utility (DCU) by selecting Run the DCU interactively during the installation.

You can also enter the DCU after installing your system, to add additional hardware devices not needed by the installation. Enter dcu at a shell prompt, as root. Also see the dcu(1M) manual page.

UnixWare 7 provides several other hardware configuration managers to configure network, modem, print, audio, and video devices after you install the system. See "After you install".

Navigating the DCU is comparable to navigating the installation windows, with similar cursor movement, text entry, and help keys active.

The rest of this chapter describes:

"Viewing hardware device configuration" (to view all detected and configured hardware on your system)
"Modifying hardware device configuration"(to resolve interrupt, I/O, and memory conflicts between devices)
"Viewing and activating software device drivers"
"Adding a new controller for a device driver"

During a fresh installation, you can only make changes with the DCU once. If you apply changes and exit the DCU, and then realize you need to make more changes: you must re-start the installation.

Viewing hardware device configuration

To view the currently detected hardware on your system, select Hardware Device Configuration from the DCU main menu. The Hardware Device Configuration window appears. This window displays hardware parameters for each device configured on your system. If a value is not needed, a dash appears in its place.

The fields shown are:
Configuration Status

Indicates whether or not the hardware controller will (Y) or will not (N) be configured into the kernel.
Device Name

Displays the name of the device. If a driver is assigned to an entry, the entry will be either the device name such as COM Port, or a driver name such as asyc, the driver for the COM port.
If the device name is UNKNOWN on an EISA, MCA or PCI system, this is an entry from NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory) indicating that the DCU cannot assign a driver name. For example, if you have installed a network adapter, but have not installed the corresponding software for the adapter, it will be listed as UNKNOWN.
If the device name is unused, this indicates that an ISA driver is disabled, but the device parameters are retained.
IRQ

Specifies the interrupt request vector (IRQ) value for the hardware controller.
IOStart, IOend

Lists the start and end addresses, in hexadecimal notation, for the controller's I/O address range.
Memstart, MemEnd

Lists the start and end addresses, in hexadecimal notation, for the hardware controller's memory address range.
For an HBA controller, these are the start and end addresses of the BIOS for the controller.
DMA

Lists the DMA channel for the controller.

To view additional information about any of the entries, use the arrow keys to highlight the desired controller and press F6. When you do, you see configuration information for the following advanced parameters:
Unit

The unit number for a controller which supports multiple devices.
IPL

The interrupt priority level, for those devices which have priority handling capability.
ITYPE

The IRQ sharing type.
BindCPU

The CPU to which the device binds.

Additional information about these parameters is described in the "Installation hardware checklist".

Modifying hardware device configuration

To change a device driver parameter for a device:

1. Select Hardware Device Configuration from the DCU main menu. The Hardware Device Configuration window appears.

2. Move the cursor to the field for the parameter you want to change.
To change an advanced parameter, first bring up the advanced window by highlighting the desired driver and pressing F6.

3. Change the parameter in one of these ways:

Directly entering text.
Pressing F2 to toggle between available choices. When the desired choice is visible, press Enter.
Pressing F2 to bring up a selection list and highlighting the desired choice. When the desired choice is visible, press Enter.

Continue changing values until you have removed any duplicate or overlapping IRQ, I/O, or memory addresses.

Exceptions to this rule are those devices that can share interrupt vectors. These devices must be configured to have the appropriate ITYPE and IPL values, or the system may not boot correctly.

Do not change entries for the keyboard. Doing so may impair the operation of your system.

4. To return to the DCU main menu, press F10.

5. If necessary, view and activate software device drivers (see "Viewing and activating software device drivers") and add a new controller (see "Adding a new controller for a device driver").

6. When you have finished making all changes with the DCU, select Apply Changes & Exit DCU to save your changes.

Viewing and activating software device drivers

The following procedures allow you to view or activate the device drivers currently installed on your system.

1. From the DCU main menu, select Software Device Drivers.

2. Select a device driver category. If you are unsure which category the desired device driver is in, select All Software Device Drivers.
The Software Device Drivers window for the selected class of device drivers is displayed. The window contains three fields:
Active/Inactive

If an asterisk (*) appears in this field, the driver is available for use assuming the hardware it supports is installed and enabled. If the field is empty, the device driver is inactive and supports no devices.
Driver

Lists the device driver name.
Names of Supported Devices

Lists the hardware controllers the device driver supports (if available).
Many device drivers support multiple controllers. The Software Device Drivers window lists the controllers supported by each device driver. If a device driver is inactive, the UnixWare 7 system cannot access any of the controllers that the device driver supports.

3. To view a specific device driver, move the cursor to it and press F6. Information about the driver appears. For a description of the fields, see "Modifying hardware device configuration".
Press Enter to return to the Software Device Drivers window.

4. To activate a device driver, move the cursor to the device driver's status field and press Space.

If you want to add a new controller, the device driver that supports this controller must be active.

5. If you are an experienced administrator who is installing the UnixWare 7 system, and if there are device drivers on your HBA diskettes that you are sure will not be needed on your system, you can instruct the installation software not to install these device drivers. To do so, remove the asterisk next to each of these device drivers.

6. To apply the changes and return to the Software Device Drivers window, press F10, then press Enter.

Adding a new controller for a device driver

1. From the DCU main menu, select Software Device Drivers.

2. Select a device driver category. If you are unsure which category the desired device driver is in, select All Software Device Drivers.
The Software Device Drivers window for the selected class of device drivers is displayed.

3. Move the cursor to the desired device driver.

If the device driver is not active, activate it by pressing Space.

4. Press F5 to add a new driver.
The New Hardware Configuration window is displayed. Default values may also be displayed. This window contains the fields for the values found in the"Installation hardware checklist".

5. Enter the correct configuration parameters for the new controller.
After you enter these values, you can:
Press F8 to cancel the new controller configuration.
Press F4 to verify that correct values are entered in each field before applying the changes.
If an error is reported, re-enter the parameter until it succeeds. If the verification succeeds or the message
Driver does not support the verify function

 
appears, press Enter to continue.
To apply the changes and return to the Software Device Drivers window, press F10, then press Enter.
After you add the new controller, view the Hardware Device Configuration window (see "Viewing hardware device configuration") to verify that the new hardware parameters do not conflict with the existing hardware controllers.