Knoppix 6.7.1 DVD hangs when detecting GeForce GTX 550 Ti, ignores Realtek 8111C

[Shambles]

During the hardware detection and configuration all goes well except for the following:

* there is a stack dump when trying to set up DRM, but it continues
* the screen goes black and 'hangs' when X Window should start to load

The card in question is: EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB

This problem can be worked around by passing the following kernel option: xmodule=fbdev OR xmodule=vesa

Attempting to use the nv or svga xmodule's avoids the stack dump when setting up drm, but tells you that the graphics adapter or monitor is not auto-configuable and that you should use the cheat codes. It also fails to recognize the Realtek 8111C Ethernet chipset.

The motherboard this chipset is found on is: EP45-UD3R (rev 1.1) None of this hardware is particularly obscure, obsolete, or difficult to support. The video card has been out for about a year, and the motherboard for about 3 years. I have had no trouble with either the Realtek onboard nor the 3Com (PCI card) networking on my 3 year old Mandriva install.

While it does detect the 3Com card and set it up correctly, and all text mode programs (e.g. ping) seem to have no problem using it, of the web browsers I tried only Chromium works. Iceweasel and Konqueror behave as if the network connection is down. This problem also occurs in 6.7.0. I was not able to test older releases since, for some reason (bad reasons), these have been removed.

I might otherwise have been able to tell the maintainers when the problem started, so they could see what changed in that version. The problem does /not/ occur in 6.2.1. I had this older version on hand.

This is the first time I've seen Knoppix fail to handle non-cutting-edge hardware correctly. I appreciate the work the maintainers put into Knoppix, and recognize it's being provided for free. I use it to troubleshoot hardware and software problems, and perform data recovery, for myself and others. I hope this problem will be rectified in the next release so I can keep using it for this purpose.


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