I know from installing windows ,that drivers were often needed for the VIA chipset on my motherboard.Presumably Linux loads some default drivers,but is it possible to upgrade them? I've seen no mention of this on the forums?

ask yourself the question 'do i currently have problems resulting
me to think that i need a patch which was needed with a
different os?'

gee that was some answer, let me elaborate :

What our friend is saying is do you currently have problems with your VIA chipset. From what i've seen the answer is no, linux does indeed support most new via chipsets. I do however remember seeing a linux link on the via website. There was an ide controller driver there. I've not tried it, but may get round to it in the future.

In general linux recognises most hardware right out of the box, however sound and particularily modern graphics cards do need third party support. Nvidia are currently top notch in linux drivers, ATI's i've not actually got to work with any decent performance. For sound its ALSA all the way, but it's fidly in the configuration department.

Hope that helped....

thanks Evilone

Yes,that was some answer.
I am tempted to reply,but I won't

You're right.I don't have any problems with my VIA chipset.In fact I never did with a windows stock install.It just that there were performance gains to be had from upgrading to the latest VIA drivers.That's the only reason I asked. Then again,since DX is not supported ,I doubt I will do any gaming on Linux anyway.
Just thought I'd ask,that's all.

lol. sorry for that. i did not intend to be rude or too
short, but i see the question you had as a windows-
minded one; one of many which i have learnt to
not ask in the past weeks; where windows needed
updates and patches to work right, as far as i have
experienced, linux really does not need to be updated
unless it is broken or if the user wants new features.

as for gaming, directx can be done without; many
games have linux-installers, often created by third
parties. check here for many games which will
work on linux. good examples of new games which
work on it are neverwinter nights, unrealtournament
2003 (+ the normal ut), quake 3 arena and many more.

apologies if i came across as too strong.

np neenee
and thanks for the games link

netime :o)

Glad to see that sorted.. I was'nt having a go, but i can say from first hand experience, when i was learning i relied on you guys and the web a hell of a lot. And it's frustrating as hell when someone who's become adept at linux gives one of those, i'm all enlightened are you thick or somthing answers. I love linux, i love the support i get from like minded people who all want the same end result, stable fast computing without being dictated to from the big companies. Lets keep out community strong, the more of us there are, the harder we are to ignore. And maybee we'll start seeing actual linux titles on the shelves along side their MS counterparts. I'm playing neverwinter nights at the moment, on linux, no crashes and about twice as fast.... I work in IT and i must admit over the past 7 months (my linux exp lol), i can honestly say i'm impressed with how far linux has come. Its no longer the techie plaything it was, lets keep it growing.

Amen to linux... Togeather we'll put a bomb under Bill's ass !!!

if you have the newest kernel, you probably have the
newest via drivers for linux. you could grep the kernel
logs for "via" to watch when certain stuff is updated.
you may often see where it says something like
via ide driver updated.