<sigh> I have worked on getting this machine functional for 2+ months now and have finally got everything working... almost. The A7N8X seems to be very Linux un-friendly and has been very difficult to set up. I have found / downloaded all necessary drivers and kernel 2.4.20 / patches and everything works (theoretically, as I don't have any USB2 devices to test) except my sound card.

The card is onboard the mobo. It is supported via the driver for the Nforce2 chipset, i810_audio. However, it seems to dislike sharing it's IRQ and despite weeks of tweaking the BIOS I can't get it on it's own IRQ. Everything else (as far as I can tell) works. If I load the driver then play sound, it will work for a while then cut out, leaving timeout errors. /proc/interrupts shows high numbers of errors whenever the driver is loaded.

Please help me! :)

Have you checked into the nforce driver from nvidia?
if not here is the link, I read a little bit I think this is direct kernel support so it may help out.
http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=linux_nforce_1.0-0248

All hardware works, it is just a matter of getting the audio card to take it's own IRQ rather than sharing it with other device(s). I know this is possible in certain cuscumstances, as I have had to install the ltmodem driver before on another machine. It has a forced= module insertion parameter which allows an arbitrary IRQ to be set on the device.

Hi,

I'm using a SB Audigy so I'm not as worried about the sound... but I can't get the onboard network card to work for the life of me. I'm running Mandrake 9.1. I tried the newest package off of nVidia's web site, no luck. (I tried both their Mandrake package and their all-in-one driver). I also checked out Asus' site, they only have a Redhat RPM.

Any ideas? What sucks is that I have to keep booting into Windows to get any help/information since I can't access the web from Linux. Ugh....

- Jason

Kernel 2.4.21 will have improved nforce2 and i810_audio support, 2.4.21-rc1 is out so you might want to give that a try.

I'm running Mandrake Linux 9.1 which is based on the 2.4.21 kernel. (So I guess I'm really happy I didn't try something earlier!)

- Jason

What chip is it syversen?

Sorry, I guess I didn't make that clear, I'm using the (relatively new) Asus A7N8X board. That's why I posted to this thread, 'cause I am trying to find other people that got this card to work. I've seen hints out there that people got it working but it takes some finagling. (I've already blown two evenings staying up late trying unsuccessfully!)

According to Mandrake's web site (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/hard...ther&F_ID=6105) they actually tested this board in house and it works. They said that you can't use a stock distribution though (unless you buy the boxed version of course!), you need something off of nVidia's site. (Of course Asus claims that stuff of the nVidia site won't work with their boards...) I've tried the Mandrake package off the nVidia site and it didn't work. (Of course, maybe I did something wrong. All I did was download it, run the package, reboot. When I went into the network configuration tool, it kept saying it could see the chip but I didn't have an ethernet adapter). Of course, that's the message I got with the stock distribution too, it's always that same thing.

I think that I have to compile something manually (like the nForce1 source drivers?) and then modify the modules.conf file as well (which I haven't TOUCHED to date yet, I'm wondering if that is part of my problem), I'm just trying to determine exactly what I need to do.

Nvidia provide several linux drivers, one for their graphics cards and one for their motherboard chipsets, you only need both if you have a board with intergrated graphics or a nvidia video card plugged in, the mobo driver is called NVIDIA_nforce_1.0-0256.

After you have downloaded the nvidia drivers and installed correctly, reboot and go in the console and type ifconfig, if eth0 shows up then use dhcpcd eth0. Then edit then inet1 config file so its starts up every boot up or just type dhcpcd eth0 every time you use linux. I have a nforce 2 mobo and this worked for me.

(I hate it when people post, get it working and then don't post how, so I wanted to make sure I posted here)

I got it working! If I'm especially motivated I might write it up and post it on the web somewhere. I tried everything I could to get the NVIDIA_nforce-1.0-0248 packages (which is what was on the web site when I looked a few days ago) to work. COULD NOT do it. Part of my problem was I didn't have the source code installed, etc. But part of it was the installation stuff, it just wasn't right.

I kept noticing people on the web mentioned an 0256 package (which I swear was not browsable on the nVidia web site a few days ago. I checked for the newest the first time, then I went back and looked for the 0256 but couldn't find it. FInally when I saw someone ELSE mention it I went back again and did a search, that turned up a link!) I spent 3 hours or so tonight getting the newest package (0256) working, I finally got it.

Anyway, here's a quick summary of how I got it to work:
1) Install Windows 2000
2) Install Mandrake (9.1, based off 3 web ISOs I downloaded)
3) Spend many hours trying to figure out why the network card won't work.
4) Finally download the source NVIDIA_nforce_*.0256.src.RPM
5) Spend a while getting the rpm to install right.

I do have ACPI off, if you check the Mandrake web site they claim it won't work with it on. (I believe them, I'm just going to leave it off).

It works! I haven't determined if the onboard sound works or not, but since I have an audigy card I'm not too worried about that at this point. From what I can tell it does.

Part of the reason I had trouble tonight is my OS apparently doesn't have the "install" command loaded! The man and info pages are there, but not the actual command. (So of course the makefiles wouldn't work). I ended up copying it manually to get it to work. I went through all the RPM packages and have installed everything even remotely connected to installation, source code, etc. Still don't have it. Any ideas why? (I would like to avoid copying stuff by hand in the future!) Thanks for your help (and if you didn't help, I wanted to pass this along to let people know sort of how it was done). Take care...

- Jason

Install the devel packages from the mandrake cd's.

so basically mandrake did everything for you...

Aussie: What devel packages? I've installed pretty much all the devel-* packages on the CDs that I can find. Which was has the "install" program?

Arruken: Uh, not exactly. Mandrake didn't do much actually. First, Mandrake doesn't have the drivers in their newest distribution. Second, their web site specifically talks about this board but not how to install the drivers. (Only that you need nVidia drivers, not even the version number). Of course, Asus tells you NOT to use the nVidia drivers, but the ones that they supply don't work.

Then, the nVidia site points (or at least used to) point you to old drivers (*-0248) which don't work. You have to get the 0256 version. Then once you have that, it still didn't work. I found a site/posting explaining how to install the RPM source. (Not supposed to be hard, but you need to use the rebuild command not install).

Finally, even that doesn't work, as you have to figure out why the install doesn't work. (And then manually copy the files to the correct locations. And of course, you have to go and modify your modules.conf file manually. (But anyone who's been researching how to get the A7N8X probably already knows that). And of course the Mandrake site said that you have to have ACPI off to get it to work.

I'm not sure why *-0248 didn't work but -0256 does, my guess is it has something to do with the malign versus falign compiling options. I found a site claiming that you needed to change from one to the other in the 0248 version (which I tried, but still couldn't get it to work). From the release notes that was changed automatically in the 0256 version.

- Jason

syversen,

where did you find the -0256 version...? Do you remember the URL?