[GRLUG] Choice of MB - Trouble Installing

[rh90p at comcast.net]

I only have one DVD burner on the A8V but the media verification checks OK when I boot the CD.  The DVD reader on the CUX4X-DLS also passes the media verification.  I think I also tried CD's on Fedora 8 burned on the CUX4V-DLS.

Here's the whole scoop which I reran last night to be sure:  
  1) Knoppix 5.2 boots and runs on both machines (caveat) but the partitioning seems odd on the A8V (Deluxe) 
  2) Fedora 9 Live burned on CD burner on the CUV4X-DLS starts booting and goes a while in graphics mode but then goes black screen a little before the bot completes. 
  3) Fedora 9 install from DVD hangs someplace past choosing the keyboard type in graphics mode.  In text mode I get a kernel panic a little ways in.
  4) openSuSE 10.3 DVD install gets past all the setup and package selection using the default package selection but then a package fails to install and it quits.  If I deselect that then another package fails to install, and so forth until I've deselected 20-30 packages.  It then completes an install but is somewhat unstable.  Then when I try and add some of the packages that I want it goes tits up.
  5) SuSE 9.3 installs and runs on both (caveat) and I am still using it on the CUV4X-DLS
  6) Windows XP64 runs on the A8V, Windows 2K runs on the CUV4X-DLS.  Monitor, Graphics Cards,  disks, CD's/DVDs etc all seem fine. If it matters the video on the A8V is an ATI Radeon 7200, the CUV4X-DLS has an older ATI which I think is a Rage 128.

(caveat) There seems to be an issue with the RAID capable Promise and VIA SATA controllers.  If I plug in more than one SATA HD the SuSE 9.3 install says that its part of a RAID and not supported. The original Linux on the machine was installed and running on RAID 0 but later kernels dropped support for RAID and I've been trying to tell the board NOT to enable RAID. There are supposed to be RAID menus triggered by special keys at POST but I cant get in to either menu.  Currently, the Promise with a matched set of small but very fast drives is disabled in the BIOS and there is a single 250G on the VIA. 

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Greg Folkert <greg at gregfolkert.net>
> On Sat, 2008-05-31 at 20:20 +0000, rh90p at comcast.net wrote:
> > What Motherboards do you run Linux on?  I have 3 ASUS machines that I
> > have been unable to install any flavor of Linux on since SuSE 9.3.
> > People I know from work are saying that they have been unable to
> > install on their machines also.  
> > 
> > I have an ASUS A8V Deluxe 64bit dual core 3800+AMD w/ 3GB ram.  On
> > that one Fedora 9 installer goes black screen just after I pick the
> > keyboard type (in graphic mode).  In ran the installer in text mode
> > and got a kernel panic in about the same place.
> > 
> > I also have an ASUS CUV4X-DLS 32bit dual processor 1000 Intel w750MB
> > and an ASUS P3V4X 32bit 600 Intel w/ 512MB ram.  The behavior varies
> > but the result is that I can't install on anything I have using
> > openSuSE 10.1 to 10.3, Fedora 8 to 9, Ubunto, etc.
> > 
> > I am no newbie.  I've been running Linux at home since Redhat 6.2 (the
> > first version that looed serious) and I was the Linux guru for an
> > entire division of a large company.
> 
> Okay, quick question:
> 
> Have you used the same Optical reader and/or the Video Card for them
> all?
> 
> I dealt with a man that said Linux would not load at all on any setups.
> Turns out he was using the same Optical Reader (which had a sticky read
> head in some places) and the same ATI Video card PCI card he took out of
> his Windows machine that had issues in Windows as well.
> 
> Lesson here: Make sure you are using usable hardware.
> -- 
> greg at gregfolkert.net
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