[GRLUG] Hey look! A linux topic!

Bob Kline bob.kline at gmail.com
Wed Dec 31 10:10:27 EST 2008


As mentioned, the motherboard is an
11 year old - release date May, 1997 - ASUS
P/I-P55T2P4 unit.  166 MHz Pentium.  Old,
but a warhorse - like the Eveready Bunny,
it just keeps going and going.

As for the mice,  it "clearly" has something
to do with the 2.6 kernel.  The machine runs
windoz 98SE fine,  and Knoppix V3.6, with
a 2.4 kernel.  I assume that means something
to do with the drivers, and how they interact
with that board.  Maybe a lack of chip set
support in the 2.6 kernel for a board that old?
I'm sure legacy hardware support is a big
issue for the kernel people.  It can lead to lots
of work and very little payoff.

All of this is mostly for sport.  Just to see how
far back Linux hardware support extends.  I'm
sure the right person would quickly sort this
out, but I doubt it would be high on any kernel
or driver expert's list of things to do.  Maybe
the drivers that are now missing from the 2.6
kernel, if that's what it is, are still available in
some way.  For me it's just install the distribution
and see if it works. Plug & Play Linux style....

   -- Bob





On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 9:46 AM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org>wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 04:44:06PM -0500, Bob Kline wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 4:35 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org
> >wrote:
> > > On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 04:20:01PM -0500, Bob Kline wrote:
>
>
> > V3.6 works fine.  Same problem with
> > other distributions using the 2.6 kernel.
>
> Wacky.  Clearly 2.6.x works with mice.  What type of hardware do you
> have?
> --
> john-thomas
> ------
> Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw
> themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't
> make it of wood, you must make it of words.
> Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, and physician (1809-1894)
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