RE: Supporting non-commodity mainboard chipsets (2/4-way memory, multiple-PCI) in Linux ...

From: Jones D (ISaCS) (djones2@glam.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Apr 06 2000 - 13:09:49 EST


> The main driving force behind my inquiry is the ServerWorks
> ServerSet IIIHE which powers the new Tyan S1867DLUAN Thunder 2500
> (http://www.tyan.com/products/html/s1867.html).

Nice board.

> A. Assumption: Stock Linux, FreeBSD and even unpatched Windows
> NT will work with any x86 mainboard, but will only use the
> components that the BIOS reports -- e.g., on a 450NX with (2) PCI
> channels and (4) Slot-2 , the older, early 2.0 kernels would work
> on the board, but only use one PCI channel (or two?) and one (or
> two?) processors (but not four)?

Running a 2.0 Linux kernel on this board would be like driving a
Porsche around in first gear. 2.2.x brings much finer grained SMP.
The PCI code is also vastly improved.
This is based on assumption that there's nothing special that
this board needs to initialise (Read below).

> B. Assumption: It didn't take much modification to support
> the 450NX and its 4-way Xeon, dual-PCI bus systems once someone
> reverse engineered the actual, undisclosed Intel specifications
> (e.g., detections, register settings, etc...).

The NX is afaik open-specification.

> C. Question: What is the status of [full] support for the
> ServerWorks/RCC chipsets?

I've tried to get information from them before for adding support
to Powertweak (http://linux.powertweak.com), but got no response.
As there's no downloadable documentation on their website, either
they're ignorant to developer requests that don't come from big
companies (Which isn't uncommon amongst chipset manufacturers),
or they don't read their support email very often.

I've sent another request, hopefully they'll be a little more
responsive.

regards,

Dave.

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