1. A kernel newer than 2.2.?? is necessary to install a hard disk larger than 34 MB, so upgraded kernel to 2.4.0-test9 (see compiling-kernel.txt ).
2. After installing the 2.4.0 kernel, ppp and syslogd no longer worked. It is now necessary to enable ``ppp support for async serial ports'' in kernel to run ppp over a modem.
3. Purchased and installed a Sound Blaster 16 PCI sound card.
4. Boot with new card - lspci showed it was an ES1371. Activated ES1371 in kernel configuration, rebuilt kernel.
5. Rebooted - computer hung at ES1371 driver, requiring hard reset. Moving card to a different PCI slot for some reason allowed the computer to boot. However, the SoundBlaster CD-ROM was now inaccessible. The computer would not recognize both the Ensoniq sound card and SoundBlaster CDROM simultaneously.
6. Purchased an EPO ATAPI DVD-ROM and threw out the ATAPI card and the old Sound Blaster CD200F. Set jumper on the DVD to `slave' and attached to the existing IDE cable on the hard drive. DVD was immediately recognized on boot-up as a cdrom on /dev/hdb. Made link cdrom->hdb.
7. Old WD hard drive was giving error messages in syslog (e.g., hdc: read_intr: uncorrectable error, and end_request: I/O error), and several include files were found to be corrupted, which prevented 3dfx from installing. So tried to install Maxtor 40 GB hard disk. Removed /dev/hdc from /etc/fstab, then shut down and installed disk as a master on secondary IDE controller. Booted up with the new 2.4 kernel, ran fdisk from command line, and was able to see all 40 GB. Made 2 primary partitions, wrote config to disk and rebooted (rebooting is not really necessary). Fdisk saw a total of 89331 cylinders or 45,022,792 blocks (approx. 43.7 GB). By comparison, Yast could only see the first 23745 cylinders. However, mke2fs hung at inode no. 13, requiring hard reset. After several attempts at fdisking, concluded it was not possible to format the 40 GB disk in Linux.
8. Removed 40 GB disk and installed a Maxtor 32049H2 20 GB disk. Made 2 partitions and formatted without incident.

   Primary partition 1 = cylinder 1-25000 /dev/hdc1 /usr Primary partition 2 = cylinder 25001-39704 /dev/hdc2 /opt Mount points hda1 522081 / hda2 swap hda3 5646847 /home hdc1 12599968 /usr hdc2 7410816 /opt

9. Tried installing the 40 GB disk again as slave/secondary IDE. Now computer would not even start. Possibly a larger power supply is needed, because voltage in house is also too low. In the past this caused the Lexmark printer to print garbage until it was moved to a different outlet in a different room (using a 50 foot extension cord). It was decided that upgrading the house just to get Descent to run was too much effort.

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