10.04 Beta1 Raid Controller Installation Issues

[Phillip Susi]

On 3/24/2010 6:14 PM, Nick Pavlica wrote:
> All,
>   I'm currently working on a new project and would like to utilize
> Ubuntu 10.04.  However,  I'm having issues with both the built in RAID
> controller an AMD SP5100, and an add on controller which is an  LSI
> MegaRaid 9240-8i.  In my testing I was able to install CentOS 5.4 on
> both controllers out of the box, but haven't been able to install
> Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 1 server or desktop using either controller.  What's
> the best course of action for getting the drivers for these
> controllers added to Ubuntu 10.04.  I did send an official request to
> LSI's support staff to consider supporting Ubuntu officially, but
> haven't received a response yet.

There are no drivers; they are fake raid controllers.  This means they
are really just standard AHCI sata controllers with bios extensions and
Windows drivers that handle the raid in software.  The dmraid utility
detects the metadata the bios leaves on the disks and configures the
kernel to perform the correct software raiding.  AMD has not released
their specifications so it is not yet supported.  The LSI should work.

The best thing to do if you are not dual booting with Windows is to
disable the fake raid support entirely and install Ubuntu using the
alternate install cd and set up normal software raid.  It works much
better than the fake raid.