I am using a serial ata hd on a chipset that is unsupported in kernel 2.6.4, but my friend has a computer with the VIA VT8237 chipset, which is supported. If i were to install linux onto my hard drive using his computer, would i be able to simply apply the libata patch and then put the hard drive back in my computer with the SiS chipset and have it running just fine?

Same question is in this thread ->
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...postid=1192276

What you can do is compile a kernel with support for your chipset
on another computer, and then install that kernel with your drive on
your computer.

You didn't provide many details, but Slackware Linux now provides
both kernel 2.4.27 and 2.6.7 and 2.6.8.1 - all have support for both
of those sata drives. If you don't want to go to ftp://ftp.slackware.com
and get the bootdisks, there's a feller who made a Slackware-10.0
sata iso image that you can use to partition your drive, and then
install Slackware 10. It's here -> http://4elements.4mg.com/#top

Edit: I'm running the 2.6.7 kernel, and it says SiS 964/180 SATA Support
You may want to check http://lkml.org and http://kerneltrap.org/ and
http://gkernel.bkbits.net/
Jeff Garzik is the maintainer for libata and has all the sata patches and info.

That sounds like kind-of a tough one. My first inclination is to say that it's pretty risky, but after a little thought, I think it's possible for you to get SOMETHING working with your hardware configuration. The newer linux kernels (2.6.x) have a lot of options for this sort of thing. Although you may not be able to find an option that will load drivers specifically for your chipset, it's likely that if you enable all the SATA drivers (and compile them in), one of them should be generic enough to work. After all, SATA is SATA; even if different motherboards have different ideas of how to handle it, the standards and protocols will still be basically the same.

Obligatory note: I haven't tried this, so I can't guarantee that it will work.

The best you can do, I think is to go ahead and try it. Install your distribution onto your hard drive using your friend's system, enable ALL the SATA drivers, recompile, make sure it still boots, and swap it into your system. If you're reformatting anyway, what have you got to lose?

Good luck.

--Dane