SCSI Adapters with AdvanSys Chipsets

1. Hardware

There are several SCSI adapters out there which are driven by Advansys chipsets, like the adapters by Initio. Though most vendors claim, that those cards are supported by linux, that is only half of the truth.

2. Problem

The SCSI adapter will not work, as the driver doesn't get loaded. The driver will not load, because it is not there.

3. In-Depth explanation

The Advansys driver is flagged as BROKEN in the Linux 2.6 kernel series. Those drivers only can be built if CONFIG_BROKEN is enabled while configuring the kernel. This is not the case with the CentOS kernels (neither the rebuilt upstream kernel nor the kernel from the centosplus repository). Even if you build the Kernel for yourself you shouldn't enable broken drivers, as this probably will cause system instability.

The advansys driver doesn't seem to be maintained anymore in the 2.6 linux kernels.

4. Output of `lspci -v`

None available.

5. Solution

There is no solution for getting these cards to work under CentOS 4

6. Workaround

If you absolutely must use this adapter, you can go with the latest CentOS 3 release.

7. Notes

None.