Linux and Intel Core 2

After resurrecting my old Intel Celeron system with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, and finding it to be too slow for my liking with the Gnome graphical interface, I decided to upgrade the hardware. I don’t recall my Intel Celeron system to be that slow. Really, I am starting to believe that Intel chips have a decay mechanism built in.

So I got myself an Intel Core 2 E6300, supported by a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard, 1GB RAM, and a SATA Maxtor 320GB harddisk. Not too bad, right? Although it’s not the highest end of the Intel Core 2, but should be a drastic improvement over the Celeron. Furthermore, I’m not a hardcore gamer, so that should be fine.

Alas, the hurdle that stumped me for 3 days was that most of the Linux distros have problems with the Intel 965 chip. During the installation, Linux will have a problem trying to mount the CD-ROM, hence installation will stall at that part. Apparently, it’s a bug in the Linux kernel, which will be fixed in the 2.6.18 version. But I can’t wait that long.
The only distro that I have found that can install is Red Hat’s Fedora Core 5, and you have to do the following:

1. Modify your BIOS to use AHCI mode for your SATA/IDE drives.

2. Start the installation with “linux install all-generic-ide”.

I hope that helps you. You can read more about the problem here.  A wiki page in Ubuntu on this issue is now available!

Looks like I’ll have to stick with Fedora Core 5 for a while. At least until Ubuntu 6.10 is out. It will be a good opportunity to try out Fedora.