If a hardware or software product is claimed to work with distributions X and Y (but other distros are not mentioned or specifically excluded), is there a general rule for working out whether the product will work with distribution Z? For example, if a RAID card is claimed to work with specific versions of, say, Red Hat and SuSe how likely is it that it will work with other distributions, or different versions of the same distribution? Is it based largely on the kernel level?


Cheers

Greg

As you suspect it's kernel level really. There could always be inconsistencies with other libraries, maube they need a newer feature in the glibc as well as a certain kernel version, but generally if your distro is new enough, running a modern kernel then yeah you should be fine. Might neeed to recompoile the kernel if dependent modules are missing, but for a generic rolled kernel, that's gonna be very rare really.

Thanks for the quick reply. I suspected the answer, but then even reasonably up to date distros like Xandros v3 don't support hardware RAID or fakeraid at all.

It's fairly moot at the moment as I'm fairly new to Linux, and want to learn the ropes before I start recompiling the kernel or playing with RAID.

I'm probably going to start out with Fedora Core 4 (reputed to be fairly hardware tolerant), and Xandros Deluxe v3 (very picky about the hardware it likes, but reputed to be quite Windows-like) till I find my feet.

I'm getting a PC that I'll devote to Linux, based on the Intel D945GNTLKR motherboard. I've already heard of a few gotchas, like the onboard LAN and the probable need to disable the RAID capabilities of the ICH7R in BIOS under Xandros.


Cheers

Greg

seems like it's a bit of a proprietry cludge from Intel: http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../cs-020663.htm basically they have drivers but they are not part of the kernel. Also though it seems that that Raid isn't hardware raid at all, so if you do want raid, buy a real raid controller or use software raid. That chipset looks like it has a very bad reputation in general.

Yep, I know the RAID on the 7R is fakeraid, but I won't worry about playing with true hardware RAID till I know what I'm doing. I've toyed with Linux for years but never been a power user. When my competence in Linux is a bit closer to that in Windows the differences between hardware and fake raid will matter a bit more.

Didn't know that chipset was dodgy though. Intel chipsets and boards were recommended by people I respect, and who have Linux and/or Xandros working on them. If it has shortcomings that I find serious it'll probably be time for a new PC by then anyway.


Cheers

Greg