Core 2 Duo and Linux
Sat, September 9th 2006 at 02:01am
* UPDATE 9/18/06: Patches for Edgy and Dapper released
* UPDATE 9/11/06: There is now a patch for Ubuntu Edgy Eft
Ever since the Core 2 Duo was announced I have been planning on building a new system around it and then using Linux as my main system on it. That however is proving to be a bit harder to do that I would have liked.
I was starting to think that Linux was over the hump when it came to basic hardware compatibility. Even it the main distros did not support all your obscure hardware like USB webcams, or TV tuner cards, you could pretty much install Linux on any system you got. However with the new Core 2 Duo systems that has changed.
My System
After reading a bunch of hardware reviews, and opinions my personal motherboard chipset of choice is Intel’s P965. The P975 chipset is very expensive for a motherboard that is now a generation behind, and the P945 chipset is designed for lower end systems and does not pair well with a Core 2 Duo. The P965 has a nice compromise of the latest technologies and price.
I am still holding out hope for the NVidia NForce 570 or 590 chipsets, but initial reviews of the ASUS motherboard build around the 570 chipset are not looking good.
So I would like a P965 motherboard to be paired with my Core 2 Duo and run Linux on it. Nothing else fancy, just gigabit ethernet, a decent graphics card, maybe raid, and a sound card. Basically I want a fast processor for music encoding, video playback/encoding, and source code compiling.
The Problem
However, somewhere along the line the decision was made by the Linux kernel development community to not add support for the JMicron JMB368 chip that pretty much every P965 motherboard is using to provide PATA drive support. Because there is currently no Kernel support for this chip you can not easily install Linux on any system if you have a PATA DVD-Rom drive or Hard-drive. With no DVD you can not install Linux unless you try doing a network boot, or use USB drives etc. But that is not practical for most people.
The Solution
At the moment there is no solution…it seems that some patches are being added to the very latest bleeding edge Kernels, which are not ready for prime time yet. Edgy Eft Knot 2 does not seem to support the JMicron chip yet either. So right now I am stuck in limbo. I can either go for another motherboard based on a chipset that is either more expensive or not as powerful as my first choice, stick with AMD, or wait and see.
Right now I am in a holding pattern until Edgy Eft is released. If it still does not support one of the most popular Core 2 Duo motherboards then I will probably just go with a AMD Athlon64 X2 and get great Linux support.
Hopefully the ASUS Nforce 570 board is just a fluke and other boards with be screamers, that support high voltage DDR2 RAM and overclock as well as the P965 boards do. That will be a nice solution.
Final Thoughts
It was very sad when I started seeing these problems crop up. I was days away from building my new system when the first problems with the P965 motherboards first started. Linux has prided itself on running on everything, and that is one of the best things about it. I was really hoping that the time had past where I had to spend hours researching each component on my new system to see if it will work well with Linux, but it seems that we are still not quite there.
What really pisses me off though is that the standard WindowsXP installer can see the chip by default!!! I mean come on if WindowsXP installer from several years ago has support for a PATA chip there is no reason Linux should not have it.
