Major boot process issue - Southbridge

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Major boot process issue - Southbridge
started by: Amit

Posted by Amit on Jan. 15 2008,13:45

Hi,

The boot process (livecd 4.2.2) can't detect the southbridge on my motherboard, which has the HDD/RAID/Audio controlers embedded in it and is the major I/O junction of the PC.
The bridge is from VIA (VT8237A, nothing out of the ordinary) and works in other Linuxs just fine.

The boot process goes only up to this line:

"VP_IDE Unknown VIA Southbridge, disabling DMA."

Booting with failsafe, sata support, expert, what ever, nothing helps. I have both IDA and SATA drives, but the problem seems to be even before DSL checks the drives... I mean it fails at the southbridge it self.
Booting with the SATA drive disabled in the bios also didn't change anything, which shows the process has a problem a stage before that.
I also have the Audio and RAID disabled by default, which of course doesn't really matter here because they come after the OS can talk to the southbridge.

Hmmmm... help? :laugh:

Posted by Juanito on Jan. 15 2008,14:06

You probably already did this, but you could try both with/without the "dma" boot option?

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 15 2008,14:47

Might have related code that was added in upstream 2.4.35? < http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ChangeLog-2.4.35 > and see patch at < http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/1/78 >

DSL-N might have better support OOB if you wish to try it.

Posted by Amit on Jan. 15 2008,17:01

Hmmm nope, didn't try the DMA switch, isn't it there to "force" DMA? (going from memory).

Yea I see now that current DSL kernel (2.4.31) probably doesn't support the southbridge on my board

Am I correct that 2.4.34 is enough to support it?

I know my way around PCs networks routers bla bla bla, but totaly green when it comes to Linux

Can I simply change/replace the kernel on the livecd?
Or can (and how :laugh:

) I can install/apply that patch?

Cheers,
Amit

Posted by roberts on Jan. 15 2008,18:38

Wait a few days as there might be something in the works.

Posted by Amit on Jan. 16 2008,15:25

Quote (roberts @ Jan. 15 2008,13:38)

Wait a few days as there might be something in the works.

No problemos

BTW, I tried DSL-N and it of course booted without a problem.
Are they the same thing just 2.6.x kernel and extra utils?
Anyway, having it still at RC state from 06' I will much prefer to have the little DSL up and running on my PC and tweak it to my needs.

Some add. questions:

1. Where do I set the graphics adapter driver?
2. Same thing for the display (other then setting for a generic resolution)
3. Fonts: hinting, tt, antialiasing, sub pixel and all that.
4. Fonts types, where to set it?
5. Multi ling.? I need to have support for Hebrew

6. Trying PCLOS, they have a tool called Synaptic. is there anything like that in DSL?
7. can you run VMware server on DSL?

Thanks

Posted by curaga on Jan. 16 2008,16:17

1) You don't.. The core DSL only has two X servers, vesa and framebuffer. Vesa is the default, and also faster of those two. But you can check if any of the tiny X servers in testing work with your card, or download Xfree or Xorg (a full X server, with all drivers and full acceleration)

2) there isn't a specific display driver. Do you mean the refresh rate?

3) I think those need full X and also some scalable (TTF or OTF) fonts

4) Full X is needed for that kind of control

5) if there's a font and a keymap, there you go

6) There is MyDSL, DSL's own packages, and also synaptic for DSL. Debian packages (from synaptic) might break something though.

7) I guess so. I've tried only Qemu though.