Serial ATA and LAN problems on install
 

I ran through the Serial ATA code without finding anything I think I can use.

I have a new box: ASUS P4P800VM mobo, Intel 865-G socket, and a WD 1200JD hard drive (serial ATA). No RAID controller.

The RH9 distro either hangs at install or fails to find the hard drive. I've tried linux hdg=noprobe without any improvement.

The Debian 3 distro found the hard drive and installed, but it didn't find the onboard LAN, nor the onboard sound card. I'm not sure about video, since I didn't install X. Also, the message

ide3 unexpected interrupt status-0xd0 count-nnnn

appeared repeatedly on the console.

There are some possible drivers for the LAN at the asus web site, but I'm not sure where in the install I can use them, and I'd still have the ide3 error message. I changed the BIOS to show nothing on the third IDE, which is true. The HD is one the 4th IDE. (I'm a Linux newbie, and so far I'm very underwhelmed--sorry about upcoming flame war.)

Suggestions are welcome.

I have the same m/b. A quick fix is to set your SATA drive to P-ATA compatibility mode in the BIOS. I did some timings and curiously this did not impact drive performance (2.4.21 kernel I think).

You could also try Knoppix (if you have bandwidth to download the ISO) which generally has the very latest fully patched kernel and excellent hardware detection. A version with 2.6 kernel should be out very shortly. Knoppix runs from CD, but can also be installed on your HD to look like a Debian system. Knoppix has be able to handle SATA since mid 2003 at least.

I got RH 9 to install using compatibility mode (it's still installing, so I can't be sure what the speed hit is), and I got Mandrake 10 to install almost out of the box. Alas, both of these releases are incompatible with my switchbox for mouse, keyboard, and monitor. If you use the Scroll Lock shortcut to change screens (to my other machines, RH 7 and Win 2K), the mouse goes nuts when you get back. Also, in Mandrake, the alsa sound driver takes about 10 minutes on load, but I think I can change drivers.

Off to post about the switchbox problem. Thanks for your help.