2.6 series kernel - what motherboard has good DMA support?
 

Hi guys,

My good ol' GA8TRS350MT Gigabyte board gave up the ghost today. My problem is that I had a "sweet" kernel setup on it that enabled DMA (specifically) on the board (a custom compiled 2.6.14.3 kernel).

What current motherboards from Asus / Gigabyte / Chaintech has southbridge / northbridge chips that are natively supported in 2.6.14.3 (or later) kernels for disk drive DMA modes?

The whole point being that I absolutely MUST have working DMA for my DVD drives and HDD's on my new motherboard, and I need to know what current motherboard model has a chipset that is supported by Linux, i. e. the mobo that will allow me to do DMA under Linux. This requires a chipset that is supported by the kernel, correct?

For example, the GA8TRS350MT has the IXP 300 chipset from ATI - it is natively suppported by the 2.6.14.3 kernel, so a system based on the GA8TRS350MT will do DMA under Linux, provided IXP 300 support is compiled in.

I ask becaus I recently found that some of the newer Gigabyte motherboards seem not to be supported in the kernel as yet as regards DMA, 'cause they use new, as yet undocumented chipsets.

Your suggestions? What "older" board will do the job (and be available at outlets...?) I can't source another GA8TRS350MT - manufacture apparently stopped years ago.

What new board is sweet with a current kernel as regards specifically DMA and AGP (optional) support?

ANY help appreciated!

I have an Asus A7N8X2 that uses nVidia nForce2 chipset that I am really happy with. Also I have been happy with SIS chipset on an older box. DMA works fine on both of them (udma5 on the asus).

Your best bet is to go into the kernel source configuration, see what chipsets are supported, then purchase a board based on that.

As said, the kernel config will give some chipset options... I tend to use nvidia or via... Mostly nvidia now... Though as I inherit some systems I have Sis and stuff as well...