hey. i have a c2d e6300 with a gigabyte 965p ds-3 mobo.
im trying to install linux on it. ive triend cent, slack with no luck.

i have tried booting live cd's but they will not boot.

i googled it around and there seems to be some sort of incompatability with the jmicron ide driver and linux, and also another board; i believe its asus pb5 or something liek that; has the same problem too.

i can get into slack11.0 but cannot open and /dev with fdisk

slax says i have an incompatable boot device.

cent just wont load and prompts me for a cdrom driver.


im sure there is a post on here about that already.
wondering if anyone has any info on this problem

2.6.17: jmicron support via ide-backport patch
2.6.18: rudimentary jmicron-support via ide-generic
2.6.19: first "really working" jmicron-support (for me), both in ide & libata-section
2.6.20-rc*: should be even better

so you can use =2.6.18* but higher kernels are recommended

Suggest you try a distro with a brand new kernel ... here is some help ... all with 2.6.20 ...

• BackTrack: 2.0
• Berry Linux: 0.79
• Edubuntu: 7.04-beta
• Fedora Project: rawhide, 7
• Freespire: 2.0-alpha2
• Frugalware Linux: 0.6
• GParted LiveCD: 0.3.4-4
• Kubuntu: 7.04-beta
• Lunar Linux: 1.6.1
• SabayonLinux: 3.3
• SLAX - Live CD: 6.0.0-pre10
• openSUSE
• Ubuntu: snapshot, 7.04-beta
• X-Evian: 2.0-prebeta
• Xubuntu: 7.04-beta
• Yoper Linux: 3.0-beta2
• Zenwalk Linux: 4.4.1

Owner of one of those renowned ASUS P5Bs and I can confirm jmicron trouble is over with the following:
- PCLinuxOS 2007
- Fedora Core 6
- Ubuntu 6.10 (LiveCD only, not the alternative CD)
- Mandriva 2007.1 Cooker
- Sabayon Linux 3.26 and 3.3
- Debian Etch (using the most recent install CD)

Slackware is unlikely to work because it has an older kernel by default; the same goes for Gentoo, although I downloaded a "SmallGentoo" just the other day that was produced precisely to solve the JMicron/Sata issue. I haven't been able to give it a try so I can't confirm anything yet.

As for that motherboard of yours, are you sure it has a JMicron controller? I've been over this with other owners of Intel boards and it's my impression that these are still having serious issues all of their own.

i believe i read that intel dropped ide support and they made the mobo makers find there own chip to support the ide on their mobo's.
not 100% sure on that though.

but im guessing the 2.6.xxx are kernel numbers?

how do i check the kernel # when i d/l them

Yes .. 2.6.xxx are the kernel versions.

distrowatch.com is a good source of info that lists the kernel version plus the version for a whole bunch of other packages.

Slackware 11/-current will work with your configuration. I've been running it on a DS3 motherboard since 12/06 and it's solid as a rock.

When installing the latest Slackware there are a few requirements.

1. Boot using the test26.s kernel, the default kernel used for installation (sata.i or something) will not properly detect the JMicron IDE controller.

2. After installing all software using the test26.s kernel, DO NOT REBOOT YET!!! The modules must also be installed. They are in the /testing/packages/linux-2.6.18 directory on disc 4 I believe. Use installpkg with the -root= switch to specify an alternate root directory to install to. This is required to have proper module support and the -root= switch is needed because the real '/' partition is mounted somewhere in /var during installation. Once the modules package is done installing a reboot can be performed.

3. I can't remember exactly, but I don't believe the 2.6.18 kernel modules package installs an ext3 or reiserfs module. To get around this, I just formatted my root partition as ext2 during the install, recompiled a custom 2.6.18+ kernel w/ ext3 support, rebooted and then used 'tune2fs -j /dev/partition' to convert ext2 to ext3.


2.6.18+ has a very bad ext3 corruption bug that was fixed in something like 2.6.20.1. So don't go using that 2.6.18 kernel very long. Download something 2.6.20+ from kernel.org and install that. The system with a DS3 motherboard is currently running 2.6.20.2 without any issues.

ONE LAST NOTE!!! The sky2 module included with the latest kernels for the DS3 onboard Marvell ethernet chipset is a pile of steaming brown. It's been broken for over a year now and they still haven't fixed it. Unless you are OK with your system locking up every 24 hours or so, you'll have to use a different compatible NIC (I went with a realtek 8169 based PCI GigE card).

Hope you get your system up and running.

ill try that soon. i just tried fc7 and it booted for install but only seen my ide drive and not either of my sata drives.