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.

Davicom network card with Tulip driver

Just doesn’t work in Ubuntu 6.06.  This problem was fixed in the package for 2.6.15-24.40, and the latest kernel from dapper-security should no longer have this bug.

But if you still have this problem, you can do this:

sudo sh -c ‘echo dmfe >> /etc/modules’

sudo sh -c ‘echo blacklist tulip >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist’

This is to load up the dmfe driver on boot up, and blacklist the tulip driver.

Ubuntu 6.06 hanging on IBM ThinkCentre A30 after non-activity for more than 24 hours

Linux 2.6.x, which Ubuntu 6.06 is based on, hangs on IBM ThinkCentre A30 after non-activity for more than 24 hours.

My scenario is that when I come back to office after the weekend, my linux system takes very long (about 2 minutes) to respond to any keystroke or mouse click.

IBM has a BIOS patch for it:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-42952

If you want to know more about the problem, you can read it at:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=TCTR-ERRN91

The other solution is to start up the kernel with the “noapic” option.  You can edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and add in the “noapic” in the boot command for the kernel lines.