I am a newbie to linux, but my question is hardware related so I thought this forum would be best ( instead of newbie forum ). I did search other posts for answers, but found none that would help.

In my Available Harware - KDE Control Module, under the Unknown catagory at the bottom, I have 14 devices listed. One of them is my 845(Brookdale) chipset host bridge. Two other devices are the PCI,ISA, and AGP bridges. I am also not showing the correct hard disk controller.

My mobo is an Asus P4B533, and my Linux distro is Suse 8.1 pro.

From experience with Windows, this always happens if the OS does not understand the chipset because it is too new. Such would be the case in Windows 98. I would have to install the inf patch in Win98 to get the OS to correctly identify the board's components.

But alas, there is no such patch to help Linux identify the motherboard's hardware.

Am I screwed on this ?
Also, is KDE Control Module like the Control Panel in Windows ? Because I do have a red X and a wrench symbol next to my CDR. I am thinking that this has to do with the above mentioned problem.

JC

If you are a LINUX newbie why did you pick SUSE. SUSE is a great LINUX distribution but it assumes you know LINUX. IMO, Mandrake is the easiest to setup. Mandrake opens the doors to LINUX. SUSE only opens its doors after you setup everything.

Mandrake 9 will detect your motherboard chipset though it may detect it as an 815 chipset. The 815 chipset modules, not drivers, will work with your chipset but it won't have all the features that the 845 chipsets have.

After you learn LINUX you can then move up to the big boys of LINUX.

Just had a look at my hardware listings (mandrake 9.0) and in the mandrake control centre I also have the brookdale chipset host bridge, as well as a brookdale agp bridge.

To be honest, whatever this may mean, it has never caused me any problems (yet)! and if the distro is working OK, why worry about it.


Oh, and the first distro that I tried, was SuSE 8.0, but because it was overly complacted to set up my dsl modem (IMO that is), I tried mandrake, because it apparently had "out of the box support" for it, which was not quite true for mandrake 8.2, but by the time I'd got it sorted, I'd got used to the mandrake, and when the 9.0 version was released, I downloaded that and the "boxed support" was working fine. I also felt that the look/layout of the gui, and other facilities had a more "friendly feel" to them, and they didn't feel "sterile" like the SuSE did.


regards

John

p.s. The bit about the CDR in your post, if you put a data CD in it, can you "mount the drive" or if you try a music CD, do you get any sound?. don't recall how you would check with SuSE, but I have both DVD and cdrw drives in my machine, on the desktop, mandrake has a "removeable media" icon, in the directory, it wants to call the DVD, CDROM and the cdrw is called CDROM2. When I look into this closer, I discover that the system also calls the DVD drive "hdb" and the cdrw is known as "scd0". Not sure why it thinks of the DVD as a secondary hard disc, but the cdrw is because it uses "scsi emulation" which I understand is to do with burning disc's. What this means is that while I can view the contents of a data CD (mandrake use an "automount" set up), when I want to play a music CD, I have to remember to tell the application (kscd or grip) to look at "scd0" otherwise, I get zilch. Oh, and if I try to use xmms to play a music CD, it get's worse, I have to right click on the "player" and point it to either /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target2/lun0/cd and if I still get nothing, I have to go to /mnt/cdrom2, and only then do I get the music - I tend to use KSCD, it's easier for me!

Check out this link I found on google.
http://www.linuxtested.com/results/Asus_P4B533.html

Huh?
I have always found Suse to autodetect everything as good as Mandrake. No doubt one may work at times when the other doesn't. I also found YAST to be as good as the Mandrake system tools.
You make Suse sound as bad as Debian or Slack.

Thanks for the replies everyone. As far as why I chose Suse? It was what they had at Best Buy to be quite honest. And I wanted the pro version because it had stuff that interests me as I am a networking and programming student in college. I noticed that Suse 8.1 pro was only $80 and Rehat 8.0 pro was $150. I thought that I was getting a good deal.

But I have no fear. I am not a newbie to computers, just Linux. I will stumble at first, but I will get there.

Thanks,

JC

Damn ! I went here http://www.keylabs.com/linux/results_servera.html#asus
and found that my motherboard is not listed as compatable with Suse.
They list Caldera, Turbo Linux, and Redhat as being "Linux tested".

I guess I should have looked at that before I made a purchase. Luckily for me I have cable so I'll download Redhat.

Any suggestions or things that I should be concerned about ?

JC

Give Slackware a try. You only need to download 1 cd.
The installer is text based, but just as easy as the others.

Obviously they use old version of linux distros -> no wonder the hardware compatibility is suck.

Look again
http://www.keylabs.com/linux/results/asus_p4b533-m.html

Usually newer released linux distro have much better hardware compatibility. Rule of tumb: if it works, it is compatible. If it compatible it must work ;-)



Have a lot of fun!

I am a bit confused about the different distro's. What is the difference ? If they are all Linux, how can they differ so much ? Is the difference the way that they set up hardware and other configurations? Why would one distro be more suitable than another for a given piece of hardware?

I guess that I am asking for quite a bit of information here. I'm just trying to get educated before I bail on my Suse installation and install Redhat. I'm not just trying to set up a network, I'm trying to replace Windows as my desktop OS as I despise Microsloth and all of there crappy tactics and practices. When I graduate from school, I'm definitely looking for a job where I don't have to program in DirectX. Screw Microsoft !

JC

Distros differ in the way they handle package management, and even the entire set up of the system--organization of files and stuff. For example, red hat, mandrake, and suse are all RPM distros (i know i know not necessarily but I'm trying to be simplistic here). Debian uses apt-get to do it all for you, and gentoo uses ebuilds. Slackware uses tarbals. So that's one major difference. Personally, I'd give slack a shot before red hat. You'll learn more, have more control over what you want, and of course, be a slacker.

From what I can tell, Slackware is like a no fluff version of Linux. Is this the case ? I don't fear an OS where I have to manually configure things. That's actually desirable in my case as I want to learn as much as possible about Linux.

Is that what Slack is (a lightweight Linux) ? If it is, can I still use KDE or Gnome and have a slick looking desktop like the one that I have with Suse 8.1 ? Also, what would be a better choice of KDE or Gnome ? I want an enviroment that is good for everyday stuff and games.

The game issue is important for me as I am a programmer and when I have my degree, I will want to write 3D games in OpenGl so that I can do my part in providing games for everyone (not just Windows). So I need an enviroment which would be good for writing games. And I would much rather hone my skills with a Linux platform (I hate Microsoft. Did I mention that ?)

JC

BTW: I don't want to get too far from my original question, which is :
How do I make Linux understand the chipset it is dealing with. For example, in Windows you just install an INF file and the OS can correctly identify the chipset of a newer motherboard. How would I do the same in Linux if the board manufacturer does not provide this type of file ?

JC

You install a new kernel (try doing that in windows :-).
The next stable kernel will contain (improved) support for your chipset, the current stable version is 2.4.20, the current test version is 2.4.21-pre# and the development kernel (next stable release) is 2.5.xx (don't use this unless your into kernel coding/debugging).
Have a look at kernel.org for info and downloads and the Kernel-HOWTO for instructions on how to do the deed.

Very cool ! Thanks for the help everyone. I will go now and learn about the Linux kernel.

JC