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Appendix A:

Installing Hardware

This appendix covers:

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:

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
Device Name
IRQ
IOStart, IOend
Memstart, MemEnd
DMA

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
IPL
ITYPE
BindCPU

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:

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

Driver
Names of Supported Devices
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:

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.


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