Before you start reading:
If you don't want to go through a lot of manual configuring and compiling (hard things for a newbie like me) and you want everything up and running from the beginning try Ubuntu 8.10. Really incredible hardware detection

For all the rest: keep on reading, I didn't finish configuring everything yet but I'm still working on my Debian and this post. Hope I can finish it properly and help other people.

The beginning:

So, a few hours ago I ran out of the shop with a very big grin on my face. I upgraded my computer from an AMD athlon 3200+ to an Intel Quad Core Q9550 . So far so good.

I tried to run Knoppix 5.0(CD version) on the setup but that didn't convince me, soundcard, ethernet, videocard, usb and sata drivers were not recognised.

Because I'm rather new to Linux I'm a little afraid that it's going to be a long trip before everything is going to work. That's why I'm posting this thread. I hope people are going to be able to help me out, and second: I'll keep everything I had to do to get the Intel DG45ID completely up and running in my first post. Maybe some other newbie will thank me later .

Well time for the real job then, installing Debian 5.0 Lenny testing.



First, what do I need to install to start building from source?

with the DG45ID lspci looks like this:

go to the command line as root and type:

Type the command "uname -r" at the command line and replace 'uname -r' in the code above with your kernel version. For me it's '2.6.24-1-686' (Oh yes: withour the '' signs )


At this time I'm stil experiencing problems with:

1. Ethernet (not recognised, and after recognition very slow internet)
2. Audio controller
3. Video card -> apparently no driver yet
4. Maybe more but not disturbing me at the moment.



1. Ethernet
NIC not recognised

Well I really don't know what I have done. During the installation it was not recognised. I tried to compile the source I found on sourceforge:

- e1000e-0.4.1.12.tar.gz

that gave errors I just tried "modprobe e1000e" on the command line as root and all of a sudden the network adapter is recognised. Don't know if it works, I'm using a PCI at this moment. But updates will follow.


Slow internet connection (IPv6 vs. IPv4)
I experienced slow internet connection and got this solution from farslayer, I also added this in this 'guide' for the DG45ID mainboard. I don't really know what the base of the problem is but somehow IPv6 (new generation of IP protocol I guess) doesn't really work. Your computer tries to connect with IPv6 tries again and again, after a while it just falls back to IPv4 and everything just works fine. So how can you disable IPv6 under debian? (for other distro's click on the URL in the bottom of the quote)

I had to manipulate a small text file called blacklist. Since I'm still a newbie and I can't work well with vi or emacs I had to do it in Gnome. But there's a problem. I can't login as root in Gnome (you need root permission to change the blacklist file). I needed permission to the blacklist file with my normal user account, here's how you can do that.


1 I opened xterm (or konsole or from a tty doesn't really matter I guess)

2. at the shell prompt type: change wannes to your normal user name.

3. change the blacklist file as mentioned below (option 2 worked fine for me)

4. Don't forget after the operation to change the owner of blacklist again to root by typing:

I know: for security reasons this is not really the best way but it worked out fine for me. Anyway in the quote underneath you can see what you have to change in the blacklist file:


2. Audio

Audio device: IDT* 92xx

Well, I downloaded the latest Alsa drivers (1.0.18rc3), and build them from source. Before I heard my pc speaker from the mainboard, now in my speakers attached to the mini-jack on my audio card (confused). Still lspci outputs:
So installing alsa didn't really help? Anyone?

3. Video card
I've been googling around and apparently there is no driver yet for the video card on this mainboard...

What I would suggest if you are willing is to try the install using a Daily build of Lenny. this uses the latest 2.6 Debian Kernel during install, and does a much better job of hardware detection.

I just did this on my Acer Aspire One Netbook to get everything functioning because none of the other Debian installers would get past hardware detection without hanging.

The how-to I followed for the Acer Aspire One For Audio says to grab the drivers from Sid or they won't work.. you may have to do the same thing.
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAcerOne heres the link for reference. maybe it will help on your new hardware.


Please let us know if this helps or what you did to get things working.

Thanks !!


P.S. Please post the output of lspci so we can see what actual hardware is in your system . it will help us help you.


Phoronix Linux Hardware review of a X4500HD Chipset Motherboard..

Hey, thanks, I'll check it out as soon as possible!!

I wanted to include an lspci list here. Usually I work with konsole but now with xterm. no copy/paste functiong found, and I really didn't feel like typing the whole list? Who can help. What's best? lspci or lspci -v ?

I usually just use lspci to start with.

can't you simply highlight the text in xterm and paste into the browser with the middle mouse button ? It should work..

Thanks It worked! I edited my first post so every important piece of info is in the first post. i'm downloading the weekly snapshots of Debian. I'm going to reinstall with that and see what the changes are.

Give the daily Lenny install a shot. there is one report that everything pretty much worked other than still issues with the Graphics controller.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post14902079

Other than that I see reports that Ubuntu 8.10 is working on those boards. . I know you are shooting for a Pure Debian installation (my preference as well) but just thought you should know about the Ubuntu reports.

I was thinking about that too. If Ubuntu runs fine I'd install it first and meanwhile try to get debian running properly.

I just tried a snapshot that used kernel 2.6.26 but that didn't work really well. My usb-HD was not found so I cound't test the soundcard with mp3blaster. I might try putting a dvd with some mp3's and run that ... Expect some feedback soon

I managed to mount my other hd with some mp3files on it, and I got the error "couldn't open sound device". So with the kernel 2.6.26 no solution out of the box for my audio problem. (just to be sure, it's the kernel that doesn't recognise the audio device right?)


Some other issues?
1.
well internet is still very slow. Once it starts loading a site everything is fine but before it starts loading it takes ages... I asked it somewhere and it should have something to do with IPv4 vs IPv6. It tries a long time with 6 and then falls back to IPv4 and then everything goes fine. Eg. When I download a DVD iso file, it's like the computer is trying to connect for a few moments (waiting, waiting, ...) but after that the iso file is downloaded at normal speed under debian/knoppix/... I have it with all my NICs (tried about 6 different ones with the same slow result). My internet connection is just fine, Windoze surfs the internet at full speed.

2.
With the weekly snapshots from debian I just installed the 3 (or 5 I didn't count them) leftmost characters in console are dropped. That I'm stuck in text mode is annoying, but that makes it even worse. No issues however with the "normal" Lenny beta 2.




But the most important for me now is to get the audio up and running under Debian Lenny beta 2. Any other suggestions I can try out? (Please don't say Ubuntu but honestly it's something I'm starting to think about silently )

recall I mentioned in my first post you would probably need to grab the alsa source from Sid and compile it, similar to the method used on my Acer netbook in order to get sound working with Debian on that hardware. I was speculating...



alsa = advanced Linux Sound architecture <- that's the piece that handles your audio. http://www.alsa-project.org/


1. http://beranger.org/index.php?article=1127&page=3k


2. probably related to video settings still

Issue with slow internet [SOLVED]

Some people are too good and have too much patience with newbies Thanks a lot Farslayer. I'm going to add that line in my first post with the URL for al the other distro's.

Tomorrow I'm going to give the sound-problem another shot. I tried it before but I must have done something wrong I guess.

I've read the changelog between 1.0.15 and 1.0.16 alsa releases. It says:


The current release I have is 1.0.18rc3. I guess I still have to work with a patch...

With Google I found some websites with the source code of the plugin, but nowhere explained how to apply the pluging?

Some more googling learned me that ICH10 should be my southbridge chipset, not really my soundcard.

I think ICH7, ICH8, ICH9, ICH10 just gives you a quick indication of the age of the chipset in the system.

If you have ICH10 then you need kernel version 2.6.X and intel driver Y in order for things to work.

Update:

I've downloaded Ubuntu 8.10 (I think) the very very latest version you told me and booted it with the live option.

my lspci looks like this now:

So far so good. The next question now is how I can look up al the components that are making my soundcard work, so I can download the right packages and install them on my Debian system?

And with running Ubuntu for now another question rose. I see a lot of eye candy that works smoothly. Windows appearing and sliding switching between desktops happens with a nice sliding... very nice effects But is that because my video card is recognised or is that because my CPU is fast enough to generate the animations. Maybe I can lookup the driver Ubuntu uses and implement it in my Debian

EDIT: I tried to put the Appearance Preferences at maximum, in the menu I see that requires a faster graphics card. Well, the wobbly windows and switching desktops with 3d animation go just fine. Not that I don't like that but errrrr If there's no video driver available how does it work then? Is that my Intel Quad core Q9550 that does the job or is my video card completely up and running?

Intel drivers are part of Xorg by default, so the system has probably automatically installed a working Driver for your video card.. I would say it's probably working so well because it already has the right driver.. Ubuntu does try to keep on top of things like that. that is one reason they have a release every 6 months..

a few things you can check..

Check if direct rendering is enabled..
glxinfo | grep direct - (if it says command not found, install the mesa-utils package)
direct rendering: No
You want it to say Yes for direct rendering.. Yes would mean it is using the hardware acceleration of your Graphics chip.


glxgears -fullscreen
hit ESC to exit glxgears.
128 frames in 5.4 seconds = 23.682 FPS < - My lame desktop PC with no Direct Rendering
The netbook I have here does 200fps, and that is not an impressive number.. basically this is a quick check of your 3d rendering performance.

glx is running properly, how can I check what driver it is using?