It became too apparent that my issues were a result of the Debian release being based on an older kernel that does not support my newer MB chipset. I wish I had known that, in general, nVidia systems don't do as well as others in the Linux world.

I'm too new at this and don't have the spare time to waste on finding and compiling driver packages with small hopes of success. I've given up on Debian 4 and installed Ubuntu 8.04LTS on this system and most of it seems to work just fine. The only crucial thing I'm having trouble with is the onboard gigabit LAN, a Realtek 8211B, and I'm going to start another thread specific to that problem.

Thanks.

Yes well fine. But you said earlier

Please don't get me wrong, but if you embarked with the intention of trying to learn something and then baled out at the first problem without solving it on the pretext that you "don't have the spare time to waste" then you are wasting your time, my time and everyone else's time. You have already hit the next problem. Working through problems that occur, gives a deep insight into the inner workings of this fantastic os. If you are not prepared for this because of a lack of time or interest go back to the commercial os you were on before.

I won't be assisting you in future.

I spent several long, frustrating days searching for solutions to these problems. Perhaps my posts providing specifics might give you some small clue as to how much thought and effort I put into it, and that I don't think I gave up easily. But everywhere I looked I found advice that indicated that I was not going to resolve this, no matter the effort. I identified the primary problem: older kernel, unsupported newer hardware. I'm not sure what part of my solution doesn't meet your standards, but it is a damn good solution, I think because it works.

For me to learn anything about Linux, I need a functional system, which I now have. Sorry you don't approve. I won't be going back to a commercial OS for this project, but sincere thanks for your willingness to help.

Found on Ubuntu forums in "Is Ubuntu for You?" thread:

Ubuntu immediately and correctly recognized and configured all my hardware. Problem solved.

I am newbie to Linux. I think that if you can install with cd on your cdrom that the BIOS is not the problem. The BIOS can see the cdrom or you would not be able to install. I had a problem with a harddrive that I could not see after booting up, and it was because it was not supported by the BIOS. I think that your BIOS can see your cdrom.

I was reading about cdrecord. They have some help on getting cdroms to work in Linux.

/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto umask=0022,users,iocharset=utf8,noauto,ro,exec 0 0

This is what I have in my /etc/fstab and my cdrom works fine. I got that by the command "more /etc/fstab".

http://www.debian.org/doc/

2.2.2. CD-ROM/DVD-ROM
Note

Whenever you see “CD-ROM” in this manual, it applies to both CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs, because both technologies are really the same from the operating system's point of view, except for some very old nonstandard CD-ROM drives which are neither SCSI nor IDE/ATAPI.

CD-ROM based installation is supported for some architectures. On machines which support bootable CD-ROMs, you should be able to do a completely floppy-less installation. Even if your system doesn't support booting from a CD-ROM, you can use the CD-ROM in conjunction with the other techniques to install your system, once you've booted up by other means; see Chapter 5, Booting the Installation System.

Both SCSI and IDE/ATAPI CD-ROMs are supported. In addition, all non-standard CD interfaces supported by Linux are supported by the boot disks (such as Mitsumi and Matsushita drives). However, these models might require special boot parameters or other massaging to get them to work, and booting off these non-standard interfaces is unlikely. The Linux CD-ROM HOWTO contains in-depth information on using CD-ROMs with Linux.

USB CD-ROM drives are also supported, as are FireWire devices that are supported by the ohci1394 and sbp2 drivers.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/CDROM-HOWTO/

4.3. Creating Device Files and Setting Boot Time Parameters

The kernel uses device files to identify which device driver to use. If you are running a standard Linux distribution you may have created the necessary device files during installation. Under Slackware Linux, for example, there is a menu-based setup tool that includes CD-ROM setup, and most systems have a /dev/MAKEDEV script. If you don't use these methods, you can use the more manual procedure listed in this section. Even if you use either of these methods, it is recommended that you at least verify the device files against the information in this section.

If you are using the new devfs file system in the 2.4 kernels, the device files are created dynamically by the kernel rather than residing on disk, and follow a different naming convention. The examples in this document assume that devfs is not being used, and may need to be adjusted accordingly if you are.

You create the device file by running the shell commands indicated for your drive type. This should be done as user root. Note that some Linux distributions may use slightly different CD-ROM device names from those listed here.

I recommended that you also create a symbolic link to the CD-ROM device to make it easier to remember. For example, for an IDE CD-ROM drive that is the second device on the secondary interface, the link would be created using

# ln -s /dev/hdd /dev/cdrom

If you want to play audio CDs, you will need to set the protection on the device file (the real file, not the symbolic link to it) to allow all users to read, e.g.

# chmod 664 /dev/hdd
# ls -l /dev/hdd
brw-rw-r-- 1 root disk 22, 64 Feb 4 1995 /dev/hdd

Some Linux distributions use group permissions to control access to devices such as CD-ROMs. A common convention is to only allow members of a group called cdrom to have access. In this case you should add the appropriate users to the group rather than changing file permissions on the device file.

When booting Linux, the device drivers attempt to determine whether the appropriate devices are present, typically by probing specific addresses. Many of the drivers auto-probe at several addresses, but because of differences in configuration, possible device conflicts, and hardware limitations, the drivers sometimes need help identifying the addresses and other parameters. Most drivers support an option on the kernel command line to pass this information to the device driver. This can be done interactively, or more commonly, configured into your boot loader. With LILO, for example, you would add an append command such as the following to your /etc/lilo.conf file:

append = "sbpcd=0x230,SoundBlaster"

See the LILO documentation for more information.

In the next section I discuss issues specific to individual device drivers, including device files, boot parameters, and the capabilities of the different drivers. You probably only need to read the section relevant to your drive type. The documentation files are usually found in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation/cdrom.