3. Setting up the hardware with SMS
This chapter describes how to configure the system's Firmware
to use the hardware properly. To do this we are going to use a
software tool from IBM called System Management Services, SMS.
3.1. Where is the BIOS?
Lots of Linux users are familiar with the x86 platform, and
immidiatly ask "What key may I press to access the
BIOS". Well, on the 7248 it's not that easy, but it's not
very difficult either. This is a real UNIX machine, and real
UNIX machines don't have a BIOS. They have some sort of
Firmware instead. There is not much to yell about, 'cause to
the users, it's almost the same thing. Firmware often seem to
have lots of bugs in them, just like the BIOSes in the PC
world. They often are more selective on what kind of hardware
they support too. For hardware system management on our 7248,
IBM has a software program to be booted from floppy disk,
called "SMS" - "System Management Services". With this you can
access the Firmware. You can get images for SMS and for
updated firmware here. You should select MS-DOS images from the menu.
They are actually zip-files in disguise, so you should be able
to make those disks from a Linux box as well, using unzip and
mtools. (If you feel totally lost on this, I wrote a quick
help, look in Section 17)
3.2. How to use the SMS
To boot the SMS, turn off the machine, insert the SMS floppy,
push the power button and press the F4 key while the system
check icons pop up in the bottom of the screen. (If you prefer a
text based interface, try F2 instead.) Basic usage is outside
the scope of this document, but it's not very difficult.
3.3. What settings to use
You should have a little look over your system to see whats
actually there. Then you should check the boot sequence, as it's
quite important to make your system boot right. The sequence
should be: (You guessed it) Floppy disk -> CD-player -> first
SCSI harddisk -> second SCSI harddisk -> etc.