Problems installin Linux on a 965 chipset
 

I am having problems installing any linux distribution on my machine. I have tried Red Hat 9.0, Fedora, Ubuntu, Centos and all of them indirectly give me the same error.

I have an ASUS P5B Deluxe motherboard which is a 965 chipset.

When i try to install it, all it does is sit at a black screen with the cursor flashing, or it will tell me it can't regonize something as ask me to select a driver from a list, but none of the drivers work.

I am very new to linux. Is there some kind of patch to get it to work with the 965 chipset.

Hope someone can help, as i have been stuck on this for a while and would really like to come to some sort of resolution as soon as possible.


thanks in advance

Hi CC,
I just ordered two of those boards this week (one is going to be my new box). I will be installing SuSE on one, and SuSE, Knoppmyth and kubuntu on mine. From what I've read the very latest 2.6.18 kernel is required to enable both RAID controllers, because the stock kernel does not recognise the PATA(EIDE) port due to a brain fart on part of one of the kernel maintainers. The workaround is to either:

a. Copy the installer to a HDD and install from the HDD

or

b. Use a SATA-PATA(EIDE) bridge on the DVD drive, connected to one of the ICH ports.

Those SATA-IDE bridges are not very expensive (generally about $15.00, give or take) and I ordered two just in case I need them. I should have all the components for the system by Wednesday and if I have time I will try installing ASAP and let you know how it worked out.

I installed SuSE 10.1 today (the board came in late and I could not get to it sooner) and I did have to use the SATA-IDE bridge after all. Try buying one of those bridges, put the ICH8 controller in IDE mode, configured for compatibility, then install. It should work fine.

Or, wait for the 2.6.18-based distros to come out and not have to wrestle with the PATA incompatibility issues. :(

Asus P5B-E
 

No problems other then that? I was getting a little nervous as I haven't seen any comments regarding the P5B-E board and SUSE 10.1.

OK, after over a week of running it, here is what I have found, with 2.6.16-based distros:

- The JMicro PATA adapter does not work (expected with 2.6.16) due to bugs in the driver, but in later 2.6.18 builds the defect is fixed.
- The SATA controller when used with the Rosewill SATA-PATA bridge can be configured for enhanced mode, but must be set to IDE in order to boot the PATA DVD drive via the SATA bridge.
- The Marvell ports do not work with 2.6.16; that is, during setup port #2 will show a link and even receive an IP via DHCP, but upon rebooting after setup is complete it will NOT work with DHCP. Also, the kernel patches do not install cleanly, and you have to hack both the supplied drivers AND the kernel to apply the patches and get them to compile.
- The wi-fi adapter kinda works via ndiswrapper, but I've not used ndiswrapper before so I need to RTFM. I'm sure it'll work based on what I've seen so far.
- in kernel rev 2.6.18 EVERYTHING seems to work perfectly, however, the removable media (CD/DVD) automounter fails (starting a new thread about that)

Current config:

P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi
E6600 (Core 2 Duo) overclocked to 3.02Ghz
2GB RAM
3x400GB HDD
1x300GB HDD
Lite-On DVD+-R drive (as an aside: Lite-On is evil, their customer service/warranty department is nonexistent)
eVGA 7600GT video card
Hauppauge PVR-150 card

I have the asus P5B-E board.
I'm trying to install suse 10.2, did you have problems getting your NIC to work?
Because i cannot get mine to work at all.
Asus gives you linux drivers on their cd but those won't install at all.