Re: VIA VT8237A Southbridge Advice

[Grok Mogger <linuximp@gmail.com>]

Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 09, 2007 at 11:35:23AM -0500, Grok Mogger wrote:
> > Hey everyone,
> >
> > I'm looking into building a new machine.  As for the 
> > motherboard, I'm interested in an ASUS 'A8V-VM SE'. 
> > Unfortunately, in Googling I've seen people complain about 
> > problems with the board's southbridge.  It's a 'VIA VT8237A'.
> >
> > I went to kernel.org and started looking through the change logs 
> > wondering if perhaps I'd be able to find something about support 
> > being added to the kernel for this chipset.  Lo and behold, I did!
> >
> > I searched this changelog...
> > http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.19
> >
> > And found the following two snippets that seem to indicate that 
> > there is support in the kernel for this southbridge as of the 
> > 2.6.19 kernel.
> [... snipped data on VIA chipsets]
> > Unfortunately, Debian uses the 2.6.18 kernel.  I'm somewhat lost 
> > from here.  Does anyone have any advice for me?
>
> compile a 2.6.19 kernel. okay, I know its not that simple, but its not
> that hard either. the trick is getting the kernel compiled on a
> machine that won't boot...
>
>
> > Even if I can add support for my Southbridge somehow, if the 
> > default Debian kernels don't include support for my Southbridge, 
> > then I won't be able to install Debian, right?  Because the 
> > installer won't be able to write to my SATA hard disk.
>
> if there truly is no support, then you are correct, but there is more
> than 1 way to install debian. You *could* use a live-cd with more
> recent kernels (latest Knoppix, Ubuntu, etc) that can properly see the
> sata disk. Then use debootstrap to install from that live-cd
> environment followed up by chrooting into the new install, downloading
> debian kernel building packages, downloading source for 2.6.19 and
> building the kernel inside the chroot. Might work. If you're dead set
> on debian that's a way to do it. And you could move yourself up to
> sid, watch for debian kernel support for your chipsets to hit, switch
> to a debian kernel, reset your apt sources and drift your way into
> testing and ultimately end up with a lenny install. Long process but
> it would be a fun ride. 
>
> A

Hey Andrew,

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my post.  =)

Thanks for the advice.  I have to admit, sounds a little scary 
for someone who has never compiled a kernel before.  =\  But I 
may actually try it.

What about security updates though (and just bug fixes for that 
matter) if I've compiled my own kernel?  Basically what you're 
saying is that I won't have a Debian kernel, I'll just have a 
kernel built from the sources off kernel.org.  Right?  So I 
guess to stay up-to-date, I'd just need to try and keep up with 
the latest stable release from kernel.org?

Also, I have to say this whole problem I've stumbled on to seems 
kind of silly to me in a way.  I love Debian's approach to 
stability and security, but why not at least keep adding 
hardware support to the kernel as it becomes available?  Seems 
like it would make a lot of sense to at least just keep adding 
drivers even if the rest of the kernel remains frozen at 2.6.18 
or whatever.

Finally, I liked the changelogs on kernel.org a lot.  Is there 
anything like that for the Debian kernels?  I've looked around 
but haven't found anything.

Thanks,
- GM


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