[ale] Problem with Red Hat 3.0.3: Dell Latitude laptops and SCSI don't mix

[Susan Liebeskind]

Folks,

I am trying to install RedHat 3.0.3 from CD on my Dell Latitude XP, 
using a SCSI CD-ROM (an old Sun CD/ROM which is a Sony CDU-8012 - nothing
exotic) and running into some serious problems with consistent
access to the CD-ROM, due to flakiness in the SCSI support.  It makes it
impossible to run the install from the CD.

----

The CD-ROM is connected to the SCSI adaptor on the Advanced Replicator
device (a tiny docking station if you will, with built in SCSI).
Perhaps 1 in 10 times, it will actually recognize the controller and the 
CD hanging off of it.  But it subsequently flakes out when the script
attempts to mount the cd...

I've looked at the Linux laptop page, and found 3 pages on Linux
on various flavors of Dell Latitudes.   All mention that SCSI is a problem
and rather flaky.  It looks like one person managed to get Slackware 3.0
installed of a SCSI CDROM, a slightly later version of my hardware
though.  Another fellow has my hardware, but installed RedHat from ftp, not
from CD, and is currently without SCSI support altogether in his kernel. 
Sounds like I might have to install somewhere else, craft a custom boot image
and use that to start the install on the laptop..

Before I plunk down another $30 for the new RedHat CD in hopes that 
it might solve my problem, it would be great if I could find an ALE
person who had this machine, and had been able to use the CD for
installation, or had a boot image that I could use to get the install
in place.  If you are out there and can help, I'd be very grateful. 

Thanks very much.

Susan Liebeskind
susan.liebeskind at gtri.gatech.edu