Asus P5B mobo.

[MrGreen]

Yes 2.6.18-rc6 is out going to try that see if it works .... will let you know unless someone beats me to it

[metalhead]

Hi,

thanx a lot!
Would be great to get this working.

Metalhead

[yarchie73]

Hi Mr Green,
Hi Metalhead,

Well, Metalhead, I'm afraid you're not right about the soutbridge.

Sure, Linux will work with the southbridge. Only: how do you get your OS installed ?

See, the problem isn't the drives, it's the JMicron chip that controls all communication between ANY hard disk and CD/DVD players.

In short: it' impossible to send Linux from your cd/dvd to your hd (the freakin' bridge is closed!) but even if you do find a workaround, then there's still the fact that you'll face the same problem in a new way: at first you cd/dvd didn't find your hd, now your hd won't find your cd/dvd... One suggestion: get SATA optical drives although I cannot guarantee it's fireproof & also you'll have fewer connectors left for your hds.

And by the way, you should remember that the onboard LAN (Realtek 8111/816 is not supported either! So even a netinstall is out of the question. Yes, there are drives around but again, they're useless unless you have your Linux already installed.

That is why I suggested and IDE controller in my previous posts.

Come to that, Mr Green, I've got it installed but it's not (yet) doing what it should.

Yes, I did get to see my Knoppix 5 for the first time (it's great!) & yes I got quite a long way installing Debian BUT (oh oh) now I DON'T FIND MY HDS ANYMORE!!! How's that for an alternative! Possibly, it's just a matter of finetuning - there have been quite a few BIOS updates since this thing came out - but right now it's hardly an improvement.

Besides, when I booted Win XP, it didn't detect the hds either - until I rebooted with the JMicron instead (the irony!!). Worse, it became completely unstable & went into reboot after reboot.

Also, it does not look too good inside my box. I mean, replacing the IDE cable to the card places it right in front of my CPU fan. The CPU is still getting cooled but now any cool air that went to my hds is being completely blocked. And they could use it: they're so close that they could easily get too hot.

I guess I'll have to find a longer IDE cable. Provided I get the card to work properly first.

[MrGreen]

Ok....

All I can say is that there are patches for kernel to get dvd drive running .... would post them but I do not see its going to help you much (let me if you do want to look!)

Was going to say try this iso by the gentoo guys but you cannot d/l or burn it

Onboard lan is working for me using my new box now, drives show up fine (beyond kernel!)

Now I have not got wireless lan working but again as board is new the drivers are too (problems compilin' atm)

How did I get my box running well I already had Linux installed on old machine using a live cd, usb pendrive & going into old install via chroot was able to set up lilo ... fstab etc ... & in the in end it boots

tried sata/ide drive adaptor that did not work for me ... although I think I may have plugged it in the wrong sata on mobo (ahead of hd's!)

No livecds atm do not work... but getting linux running on P5B (Jmicron!) yes my drives show up (sata!) but not dvd yet

Been using Linux for a few years now & know not to give up (not after I have spent all this money on this sweeet box!)

I'll help you as much as I can .....

[yarchie73]

Hi,

Thanks for offering help but I have made "some" progress in the meantime - though it's the kind that takes a lot of hard work.

Turns out the Promise IDe controller does have its use but also many drawbacks:

- It did not detect any of my sata hds at first; after some bios adjustments it detected one at least : the bootable one, which was exactly where I meant NOT to install; solved it by unplugging this one & moving the second one to the first connector.

- Obviously:installing Debian Grub on this second drive also means all its information will be wrong when I reconnect the first sata; just more work ...

- Dual-booting with Windows XP 64 is impossible because Promise has 32 bit drivers only; If you boot up with as few as a single device plugged into the Promise, you're in for a nice round of crashes and reboots. Just like Windows, all my Linuxes are 64 bit but they do work (more or less) with the Promise . Unfortunately, I still need Win for work so dropping it altogether is not an option. I had hoped that connecting my dvd to Promise & the cd to Jmic would work, but nopes, nothing but problems that way.

- Worst of all: it seems like I am constantly moving things around in my box. Plug in a Sata, move another one, replace and IDE cable, etc etc It's tiresome & really, if pcs were meant to be handled this way, they wouldn't be so well locked up into a case, right?

All in all, It's fine for now. If I manage to get Debian installed - I am confident I will - I guess I will replace my hardware in its original order and go without cd/dvd until the right kernel comes out; I also have Fedora and that one does show cd & dvd.

And you know what? Now I'm also trying to get Solaris 10 installed ... Oh no, I must some sadomasochist freak!

[MrGreen]

Wow! that sounds waay too complicated to me

I'll see if my new kernel works ....

2.6.18 should solve our problems.....

Good Luck with your install

EDIT my new kernel is working ... dvd drive is showing as hda (listening to music right now!!! for the first time!)

2.6.18-rc6 with jmicron patch

MrG

[yarchie73]

Now there's some good news!

Could you let me know whether rc6 comes with the jmicron patches included or whether you still had to recompile?

If it's not too much trouble, I will get me one too. I'm really getting tired of the hocus pocus with the controller card because I now need to install Fedora & Debian again.
The first time I Gave Debian too little space so I reinstalled & I also added Solaris 10 but now both Debian & Fedora went screaming bloody murder & they basically passed out. Sooo Great... I guess the 10 in Solaris refers to the number of times you have to install before you get a tenth of it working.

Btw, I am fairly new to Linux so perhaps you could answer this question for me: is it safe to upgrade only the kernel on an existing Linux. I mean, both Fedora and Debian r0a have been around for a while; wouldn't a brand new kernel cause parts of it to break?

[MrGreen]

http://distfiles.evolution-mission.o...e-2.6.17.patch

HTH

Built on 2.6.18-rc6

errr

you need to add

CONFIG_BLK_DEV_JMICRON=m

to config (you may want to change it to =y !)

Or search Gentoo forums for jmicron

I set my BIOS to AHCI for use with my sata drives (module loaded with initrd!)

HTH