Andreas Huennebeck writes:

Hi everybody,

I'm planning to buy a new PC which should have a (soft)raid 1 disk system and a sensible 2D graphics card without fan. Due to its speed and the cool'n quiet option I got an offer about a PC with Asus K8VD, AMD64 3200+, two Maxtor Sata disks, a Plextor Premium CD-writer and an MSI GF4-MX440 graphics card. With this information I started to look for Linux support ( I want to stay with SuSE) and was quite shocked when I had to find out that this combination is very problematic:

- Sata does not work at all, neither with the Via nor with the Promise controller on the motherboard. - The graphics card is not supported. In fact, searching on the SuSE hardware database for graphicscard with full or partial support on SuSE 9.0 AMD64 lists not one single card! This shurely is no satisfying state.

Just ignore the database for AMD64... I expect that the graphics card works...

Is this a problem due to binary drivers from the graphics card vendors? If yes, are there graphicscards (which you can buy now) which have an open source driver?

So what should I do?

- Use the standard 32Bit SuSE9, will this support the hardware listed above? - Use an EIDE softraid instead of Sata? This solution needs an additional EIDE controller as a softraid needs both channels and then there is no channel left for the CD-writer.

Wait a week, I'm currently testing an update CD with support for the VIA SATA controller and will announce it here...

- Use a Pentium P4 instead? Are there any Motherboards where the Sata controller is supported? Graphicscards should be no problem then, right?

I can wait until end of march, then I need the new PC. Are there any chances that a new SuSE 9.1 distribution might be available which solves these problems?

SUSE Linux 9.1 should contain support for the VIA controller, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, aj@suse.de, http://www.suse.de/~aj SuSE Linux AG, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126

Andreas Huennebeck writes:

Great. Waiting one week is no problem, I want to buy the PC end of march anyway (will then be cheaper anyway ;-). I'm currently in the evaluation stage ...

Ah, ok.

...

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[..] Are there any chances that a new SuSE 9.1 distribution might be available which solves these problems?

SUSE Linux 9.1 should contain support for the VIA controller,

Very good. Any chance that you disclose the date when SuSE 9.1 for AMD64 shall be released? ;-)

At the same time as 9.1 for x86 gets released ;-)  No real chance. You might make some educated guesses from past releases but keep in mind that dates can shift by some weeks... Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, aj@suse.de, http://www.suse.de/~aj SuSE Linux AG, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126