Hi All, FYI, as a matter of fact. This is a Thaiwan'ish ABit MotherBoard's manufacturer, that provides among others, a interesting and speedy board, and a cousin (not cousin, but son Sir!!) Linux distro site (Gentus): "Those days they grow as fungi's, as they ever did, thought" =`:) (see on bottom as [GentusURL]) [FACT] The ABIT's [ BE6-II ], announced as: [ BE6-II Pentium®III AGP Based Ultra DMA 66 ATX Mainboard With SoftMenu TMIII ]: URL= http://www.abit.com.tw/english/product/be6r2.htm That provides the following: [FEATURES] *. Atx form factor. ++CPU *. Supports Intel Pentium® III 450~800 MHz processor cartridge +PII+Celeron266~533 ++Chipset *. Intel®440BX chipset (82443BX and 82371EB) *. High Point HPT366 chipset supports Ultra DMA 66 [**the diference**] ++System BIOS *. SOFT MENUTM III or DIP switches to set CPU parameters *. Award Plug and Play BIOS version 6.0 ++Multi I/O Functions [8 IDE DISKS (8, 8, 888888...)!! FIUUUU.. *. Two Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports up to four Ultra DMA 33/66 devices *. Two Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports up to four Ultra DMA 33 devices [COMMENTS] #- First of all, a very intriguing board. #- This new board permits simultaneous connection of [8 IDE DRIVES] -- 4x UDMA33. IDE1 + IDE2 -- 4x UDMA66. IDE3 + IDE4 [Special 80 stripes flat cable included] [FACTS & CONSEQUENCES] ##- Sums up to 8 Drives, BUT: ** The Award Bios does NOT permit IDE Port REPOSITIONING = ** Can't invert IDE Ports and make UDMA66= IDE1+IDE2 / UDMA33=IDE3+IDE4 ** [The BUT here]: You can't, on a full loaded system, make a [ej, IBM UDMA66 13gb] act as HDA+ native UDMA66, it will appear always as HDC as minimum, unless you you won't care to sacrifice High Speed and switch back to Medium Standard Speed connecting it to IDE1 (a pity on it's own). and: ** LILO won't support HDC MBR Boot, although _windoze_ works well, and you can Lilo Linux from dskt (not a plausible election). [FEATURES NOT PRESENT??] ## Also it is not clear that you can disable, with the Award's Bios setup, the UDMA33 ports and switch forward UDMA66 ports to IDE1/IDE2. (not tested, not apparent, may be..., not sure...) [RELATED POST] Link: Bits of: "Re: [SLE] LILO and UDMA drive": http://lists.suse.com/archives/suse-linux-e/2000-Aug/0373.html ---- As of Fri, 04 Aug 2000 21:29:50 (GMT+02) [see Link for time convert]/ Eduardo Carriles wrote:
[snip...] [INFO] Abit mentions a party Linux center with full motherboards support, as they say at: http://www.gentus.com
But as of today it seems to be down from my site, try and check it if you wish.
[NEWS] Not any more down, now it's up & running!! [They state:] "We have set up this website as a sort of community and club for those who are running GentusTM on their ABIT systems and want a place to find information from ABIT and others." [INMHO] They will never scale up to SuSE, they provide for ABit MBoards specifics only. No doubt that they will help some. [SuSE] Not the grade of involvement & support that SuSE provides [#1 Linux Distro, point.!!], also they (Gentus) show a cute homepage. (also money/mass volume driven, i think, they smell it...) [GentusURL] Check'm as: "Gentus Linux" at: URL= http://www.gentus.com/ [Sofronia's favorite humble configuration] I've got among others, a full tower system loaded with: Intel/MBoard AL440LX+ PII300+ Intel128Mb Ram+ 20Gig/IDE Fujitsus+ SCSI Adaptec AHA-2940UW Dual Channel+ SCSI Pionner CD-Rom+ Scsi/HP 9200 CD-WriterPlus+ IoMega/Scsi Jaz & Zip+ ATI 3D RAGE Pro Turbo AGP 2X Graphics+ NEC MultiSync E1100-21 Inch Monitor+ Creative SoundBlaster AWE64+ 3Com Ethl III 3C509b+3Com ADSL PCI HomeConnect 3CP3617+ Terra Networks ADSL 256/128Kb band wide. Fijitsu's Disks are the best, point, i will not buy others. (silent, speedy and a rock!!) Dual boot SuSE Linux 6.3 & windoze. Just waiting SuSE 7.0 for the end of Summer 2K. and won't change it for any, it is my favorite!! May be an ABit board?? will it scale up?? [FEEDBACK, Advice, Comments Request] A load full of it, as you use to do, thanks a lot to every body!! =`8) ** Price?? ** Performance/ Speed?? ** IBM UDMA66 Disks Transfer Rate?? ** Problems?? ** Support?? ** Availability?? ** Expected elapsed time on Market till EOL?? ** Owner's grade of satisfaction?? ** Linux Kernel native UDMA66 drivers?? I'm rumbling in my head with the idea to buy one, but not sure that i will not prefer to buy a Intel Board, as i usually do, INMHO they are the speediest. Please ACT NOW. Yup?? -- HTH Best regards, Eduardo Carriles [-- Better a smile than a flame --] (Long time SuSE-Linux [preferred distro] user). [-- Se me nota mucho? -- Notices me much?] [-- Have a lot of fun...] -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq