Public SourceMage Discussion List

[John T Copeland <johnc AT neto.com>]

Seth Woolley wrote:

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> I have an nforce2... didn't do anything special to it, of course, I
> haven't tried the nvnet drivers yet, for example.  DMA is working at least
> in principle here.  Please check out:
>
> http://home.t-online.de/home/Johannes.Deisenhofer/nforce2linux.html
>
> that's the best centralized source I've seen on it.  I'll be getting
> around to testing all its various suggestions.
>
> Also, the #sourcemage channel in irc.freenode.net, I'm always in.  drop
> in, leave me a message or mention it to the channel, and we can work on it
> together (I'm "swoolley").  I'm sure others in there have the same board,
> as I've seen discussion on it in and around the chat room.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Seth
>
> On Thu, 1 May 2003, Jeremy A. Kolb wrote:
>
>  
>
> > check out linuxhardware.org, they might have something. also
> > linuxnewbies.org has stuff as well. the nvidia drivers are pretty easy to
> > install if you need help you can always email someone or go onto
> > #sourcemage on irc. i hope that kind of helps.
> >
> > Jeremy
> >
> > On Thu, 1 May 2003, John T Copeland wrote:
> >
> >    
> >
> > > I remember reading about and browsing a website dedicated to Linux
> > > Harware Compatibility, but can't remember the name.  Does anybody know
> > > the name of this site or any sites dedicated to Linux Hardware
> > > Compatibility.
> > >
> > > I am currently in the process of building a new system and want to use
> > > the nForece 2 chipset.  I remember someone talking about NVdia's drivers
> > > for Linux and Xfree86 but don't remember the particulars.  I am looking
> > > at the Abit NF7-S and NF7-M motherboards, and wonder if there are any
> > > websites who review mobo for Linux.
> > >
> > > Also any advice/experiences related to nForce 2 mobos and Linux would be
> > > appreciated.
> > >
> > > I, of course, want my SourceMage Gnu/Linux system to be as stable,
> > > usable, easy to setup, etc as it currently is on my Soyo SY-K7V Dragon
> > > Plus based system.
> > >
> > > I don't  know where to go for hardware info on Linux(lots of stuff for
> > > Windows of course), so I thought that a question to my compadres in SMGL
> > > would be a good place to start.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > JohnC
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > SM-Discuss mailing list
> > > SM-Discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/sm-discuss
> > >
> > >      
> > _______________________________________________
> > SM-Discuss mailing list
> > SM-Discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/sm-discuss
> >
> >    
>
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> Seth Alan Woolley <seth at tautology.org>, SPAM/UCE is unauthorized
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>  
Thanks Seth, Jeremy and all who aswered the call.

I have been awhile getting back as I have been working with the new 
mobo/cpu system.  It is an:
   Abit NF7-S mobo(nforce2) with the latest BIOS from Abit(12 on the 
boot splash, 1.8 on Abit website)
   2500+ AMD Barton overclocked to 2055MHz(BTW this thing goes for 
$96US at newegg.com)
   Geil Dual Channel DDR433 PC3500 512MB(from newegg) with FSB=205(410 DDR)
   Linux kernel 2.4.20(pure)

I have everything up and working except the serial ATA disk.  I don't 
have any serial HD's.  I got DMA(33 only) working by adding
  hdparm -d1 /dev/hda
  hdparm -d1 /dev/hdb
to bootmisc.sh in init.d.
Anything over UDMA2 is not available in 2.4.20

I cast spell NVIDIA_nforce2 to get the nvnet driver and ac97 codec 
interface.  I also had to rebuild the kernel to get the i810 audio 
support.  The audio and ethernet both work.

USB worked for my digital camera(borrowed) after I added USB support 
including mass storage support to the kernel.  This should work for any 
camera that supports the 'mass storage' interface.

According to the kernel mail list, some work on official nForce2 chipset 
recognition is being done for 2.4.21 along with some patches for DMA.  I 
tried 2.4.21-rc2 with the AC patch for Alan Cox and it would not even 
let me do 'hdparm -d1 /dev/hda(b), so I am still running 2.4.20.  It 
appears a lot of work is being done in this area for kernel 2.6.x.  The 
official 2.4.21 may have full nForce2 support when it is released.  
Don't know.

This is as far as I have gotten to date.  There may be other issues, 
like FireWare, SATA, IO-APIC, AGPGART, SMBus.  However, these are not 
important to me at present.  I am more than satisfied with the 
performance of this system at present and will wait on official kernels 
2.4.21 and 2.6.x.

I did a lot of googling before I started this upgrade.  An entry at 
website linuxcompatible.org said Linux was good for the NF7-S mobo.  
Also I checked out all the leads sent to me by the SMGL guys(thanks).

JohnC