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Linux Distro for ABIT Hardware 221

Posted by Hemos from the a-distro-for-everything dept.
roidrage writes, "It had to happen sooner or later: Linux distributions tailored for specific pieces of hardware. ABIT has announced "Gentus Linux". It's a distribution preconfigured to support Ultra DMA/66 on ABIT mobos. Now if only Creative would come out with SBLive Linux. " I'm going to be introducing a number of new distros: Pre-Coffee Distro as well as Drunken-Sysadmining Distro. Seriously, though, this is an interesting step. Are more and more folks going to issue distributions like this? What do you think?
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Linux Distro for ABIT Hardware More

Linux Distro for ABIT Hardware

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  • Wouldn't it be nice to just let things run without any tweaking or caring for at all? Ahh... no more whining (l)users.
  • I've been having trouble running ANY distro of Linux on my machine because Dell packed my system with winware crap. I wish there were a distro to work with hardware that's only supposed to work with windoze.
  • Isn't Mobile Linux, kind of specialised Linux ?

    This kind of specification could lead to Linux being used in embedded systems. Soon, the Cell-phones, microwaves, fuel injection systems, and all other systems will run on embedded Linux systems.

    I am looking forward to the day when I can kernel hack my electric shaver.

  • OSes have been talored for specific hardware for years. Compaq used to provide Compaq Dos with their machines, Tandy had Tandy Dos. Even now the Windows installation you get on your average desktop is customized a bit, mainly drivers and included software.

    What *is* new though is the fact that a motherboard company decided to do that. I've *never* heard of an OS tweaked to run well on a specific peice of hardware. Very interesting.

  • too many. (Score:3)

    by quadra ( 2289 ) on Monday February 21, 2000 @12:34PM (#1255360) Homepage
    All these distros make FreeBSD look more and more appealing to me. It's certainly not a bad thing to have more choices, but it may seriously hurt the ability of admins and helpdesk people out there to effectively support linux.
  • Drunken Barn Dance Distribution

    nuff said.

    -l
  • I don't like this idea at all. I think this will introduce too many incompatabilities with vendors releasing software for a specific hardware company's distribution. If you don't have popular hardware, I guess you're just screwed if a company decides that your hardware-specific distro isn't popular enough to warrent a release.

    Besides.. their mascot is a dork. And so is their PR Manager. "Free from ABIT, free from worry!" makes it sound like he's dumped his ABIT hardware, so he has no more worries.
  • IMHO, this is not a good thing, leads to too much "bad" fragmentation. What's next? Linux for Celeron 466's without Zip drives? Earl

  • What it really is.. (Score:3)

    by Tom Rini ( 680 ) on Monday February 21, 2000 @12:37PM (#1255364) Homepage
    A friend of mine pointed this out this morning. It's RedHat 6.x with s/RedHat/Gentus/g and Andre Hedricks(sp?)s IDE patches applied to a 2.2.x kernel. I'm not sure about the kernel part, but those patches do add support for the UDMA/66 chipset found in the BP6. As for the 1st statement check out:
    http://www.gentus.com/qig-images/image002.jpg
    and
    http://www.gentus.com/qig-images/image030.jpg
  • I think there can be too much of a good thing, in this case distos. When things get too threaded there could be possible. It should be a top priority for these companies, in this case ABIT, to make sure that their support can easily be incorperated into other distrobutions.
  • The reason is simple. Essentially you create a piece of hardware that runs with a particular OS and then you don't release hardware for anything but that OS.
    I don't think that hardware like this will be suported anytime soon.
    I would rather have automatic detection of various hardware and then install the various conf files based upon that information. Having a seperate distro will just end up locking you into that hardware even if it's not the cheapest.
  • Why doesn't ABIT just fix their chipsets so mainstream kernels work on them? Entire mailling lists have been created for ABIT boards, not because they are good, but because certain models don't work well (if at all) with linux.

    How about putting some effort into fixing that before making Yet Another Distro!
  • What's the big problem? Basicly, the software vendor supports the distro stuff. And for the rest, it's: do you have libxxx installed? No? Install it. Not very hard.
  • I don't think that things would get more complicated through specialized distros.

    When the help-desk can assume, the user is running the specialized linux, helping should be much easier, since the help-desk knows, where is what.

    The hacker can still run his preferred distro on his machine.

  • I could see hard drives coming with a base Linux installation on them and a cd to add stuff with. This could just be another stage on the manufacturing line. If you don't want it you just format the drive, but if you're a newbie it could be very useful.

    Would boost the stock of any company who tried it I bet.
  • hmmmmm.....i think it would kinda be a pain to have a seperate distro for each peice of hardware. i could boot a distro that supports my motherboard good, or i could boot one for my video card, or my sound card, or my alchholic habits :] sounds like that'd give you just a LITTLE down time... why not just release good drivers or kernel hacks? or maybe i'm just a whiner....
  • Is this just a standard distro with a special kernel driver or somthing?

    As long as there isn't any incompatiblity (and Abit put there modifications under the GPL), I don't see a problem. Abit just wants there boards to work. Abit has always been a pretty damn cool company, I guess that's there 'market nich'.

    [ c h a d o k e r e ] [dhs.org]

  • they just don't get it ;-( (Score:3)

    by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Monday February 21, 2000 @12:42PM (#1255374)
    the answer is hardware incompatibilities is not to just roll your own distro - its to work with the kernel developers to ensure your hardware is supported in the main line

    sheesh! this is madness. its enough to make me run to freebsd - with only onedistro. I can only assume things are more sane there. limited - to some degree - but saner, for sure.

    fragmenting the linux base can only have detrimental effects in the long run. if the linux distro market becomes so splintered, the anti-linux crowd will see this as a sign of disorder (disorganization) and we'll lose more credibility than we already have.

    --

  • I'm glad they put some work on Linux, but I just don't get why they have to provide a whole distro. I'll stick to my French speaking Mandrake, thank you. Now, if they could just provide drivers for their funky controllers (what about the IRDa subsystem on my BE6? there is no doc on this).

  • Have they added anything new? Or is it just RedHat with some patches applied? They mention this:

    PerMon(TM) is a graphic PERformance and MONitoring Tuner Utility that allows users to monitor driver performance tuning.

    -Benchmark IDE performance interactively
    -Change driver parameters to fine tune IDE drive performance interactively or automatically
    -Extended to RAID performance benchmark and tuning
    -Monitor CPU temperature and fan monitor (from BP6mon


    Is this new?

  • I've had bad experience with drunken sysadmining. I wanted to make a boot floppy, but cp'ed my kernel to /dev/hda instead of /dev/fd0. Of course, I didn't realize the extent of the damage until I wanted to reboot the next day and realized my partition table was hosed...

    Friends don't let freinds su when drunk.

  • Re:too many. (Score:3)

    by generic-man ( 33649 ) on Monday February 21, 2000 @12:43PM (#1255378) Homepage Journal
    All these distros make Windows look more and more appealing to me. It's certainly not a bad thing to have more choices, but it may seriously hurt the ability of admins and helpdesk people out theree to effectivly support linux.
  • Hmm, an interesting thought. So will the so called 'splintering' of Linux be the breakthrough that FreeBSD needs? Or is it 'too late'?

    Personally, I'd rather see the modification and diversity of linux continue, to a point. It seems in line with the attitude that "we've got to fight the 'One World, One [Insert Giant SW/HW company here]' people!" So will the diversity allow linux to flourish in ways that we can't currently understand, or kill it, like certain media pundits think?

    Better to be dynamic than static, to a certain point. The model seems to have worked OK for hardware/PC clone manufacturers in the past...

  • Anything that makes linux easier for Joe User to get what he paid for out of his shiny new box (or mobo) is great. But... how much is too much? It's the "Umax scanner bundled single id psuedo-SCSI card" Linux distro. Neat-o.

    What we (Linux community) really need is a simple way to get stuff working (sort of like Windoze? AAHCK)? While I do not have any major problems getting my stuff working, I cannot see my mom compiling the latest emu10k module and actually inserting it. HUH?

    Actually, you can teach a donkey how to sing, but he will still sound like an ass...

    --
    Kir
  • It just looks like a pure marketing move... a complete new distro just for some new lines in the kernel and the "ABIT PerMon(TM) Tool Set " ?
    Mmmh... contributing some code to the standard kernel and releasing their tools as a standard GNU tool would be a far better solution, but it surely wouldn't have the bells and whistles of a "new distro".
    I'd prefer to see a motherboard company offering a Debian, RedHat, Slackware, Mandrake, etc. distro (even a 1-CD edition) with some specific (and GNU) tools on a floppy (which would be availaible by FTP too, of course)... THAT would be a very cool gesture for Linux users.
    But I'm sceptic about that Yet Another Cool Distribution thing.

    Stéphane
  • What am I supposed to do? Boot into my ABIT distribution when I want UDMA, boot into my Creative Labs distro when I want my sound to work, boot into my ATI distro for graphics?

    Why have a distribution when 99% of the stuff hasn't been modified?
  • There are already great SB Live drivers for Linux, which can be found at http://opensource.creative.com [creative.com]. No need to wish for a distro from Creative!

  • huh? (Score:1)

    by delmoi ( 26744 )
    Abit uses standard Intel chipsets. If there is a problem with linux running on them, then this is a good idea. Windows dosn't have any problem with the mobo's, so there probably isn't anything wrong with them. Abit is only trying to make things easier for linux users.

    [ c h a d o k e r e ] [dhs.org]
  • have to replace my distro just because I replace my mobo.

    John
  • I certainly wouldn't go that far.
  • If they send a kernel patch, and do a decent job of it, they can get a line in /var/log/messages as well as in the boot-up process when running on any ABIT motherboard, on any distribution.

    By creating their own distribution, this is decidedly fragmentary, and insane.

    I wish that I were incredulous at this; after seeing what LinuxOne has to offer, I'm not...

  • I think that we are going to see a lot of this. More and more people will have their distro aimed at some very specific audience.

    I still think there will be one or three very large popular distributions. But that still lets there be room for the cad/uf/science/slashdot/freak distro to be made for people who are into cad/uf/science/slashdot/being freaks.

    This I think will be a good thing TM as features from these will be picked up in the major distros and things will keep getting better.

    So when is the slashdot distro coming out? and whatcha gonna call it? SlashHat? DebbieDot? AC Linux?

    Noel

    RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix [rootprompt.org]

  • I think that it would be much more productive for hardware vendors to push for support in the current major distributions than to roll their own. To maintain a distribution takes a lot of time and effort, and I don't think there's any practical way that an organization not focused on the distribution as a major product can expect to keep up with a company like RedHat or an organization like Debian. I use abit motherboards, and I'm certainly *not* going to use their distro. It seems like a masturbatory act more than anything else.
  • At one time, most hardware had its own OS specifically optimized for that platform. &nbsp I see this as no different. &nbsp Linux, as they say, is "just a kernel", one that can be tweeked, streamlined, and made to be optimized for your hardware. &nbsp The fact that Linux is actually "GNU/Linux" tells you something - that it was made to be freely available for such tweeking.

    When I walk into the cereal aisle in a supermarket in the U.S., I am presented with an obscene choice of brands to choose from. &nbsp I don't know about you, but I don't complain about having the ability to pick and choose which to buy. &nbsp However, note that not every cereal originally put on the market is still around. &nbsp Quality control, marketing, popularity, etc., influenced what sits on the shelf today. &nbsp Likewise, we're about to possibly have an explosion by GNU/Linux of the same caliber. &nbsp A good rule of thumb is "Caveat Emptor"... &nbsp "Let the buyer beware".

    I guarantee that time will tell and the wheat will be separated from the chaff.

  • What would happen if every hardware manufacturer would start their own linux distribution? I mean, if Abit's Linux version will only work on Abit motherboards, and Diamond also makes a linux distribution that only works with a Diamond product, will yo use Abit Linux with Diamond addon or what :)
  • good point - they could get free PR by having a 'dmesg' line at bootup. and by mainlining the code, ALL distros would have that dmesg 'brag line' in there.

    and btw, I am running the hotrod66 pci card (same chipset as on the mainboard) with Hedrick's patch. seems to work just fine so far. so I see no reason at all to splinter the distros and create yet more confusion. if they have value to add, let them work thru Hedrick and we'll all win that way.

    --

  • They aren't completely out of the loop. But, I would be happier if they had stuck to submitting their kernel patches in the usual manner, and maybe created a site that suggested how to tweek the major distros it be used optimally w/ abit mbos. At least they are making a serious effort to support linux.
  • It's a bit hard to swallow.

  • I would not advise hardware makers to put out an entire OS based on a single part. If VA needs their own distro due to an entire machine, that's one thing. But getting a distribution to cater to one's choice of motherboard?

    There are two things wrong with the idea that come immediately to mind:

    • maintaining a good distro is a lot of work.
    • GPLed software means the best part of Gentus is liable to be in the next SuSE and debian (there are other distros?)

    Because of this, I think the work/reward ratio for Gentus is more likely to be high.

    I would have suggested that they work (and I bet this wouldn't be hard) to get configuration tools and Abit mobo support worked into the major distros, and let other people maintain the rest of the distro. This way they promote the hardware (the revenue point) while incurring the minimum costs (even hacking up a RedHat distro with s/RedHat/Gentus/g every quarter takes time).

    That's my $0.03 Canadian.

    Steve

  • Now if only Creative would come out with SBLive Linux.

    I have to ask - what would the point of this be? Creative have been working on their SBLive Linux drivers for quite a while, and they are almost at the stage where they can get the driver included in the kernel. I forsee that they will get included before 2.4 comes out. Until then, you can download the kernel module source code at Creative's Open Source web site [creative.com].

  • As many people have pointed out, this is "bad" fragmentation. It's another distro with hardly any value-add, aimed at a tiny section of the market.

    But the good thing is that they didn't start from scratch. They started with the most famous (if not the biggest) distro and made some minor changes. If you can handle RedHat, you can handle Gentus (probably). So long as future releases stay current with RH, there shouldn't be a problem. I don't know how likely that is to happen, though.

  • Tell me about it! I spent $70 to buy a modem for linux, (there are probably cheaper modem, but that's the only one label "linux compatible" in CompUSA) and then I fount out the cheap box running SiS 6326 video card. Nothing graphical works. I'm stick with a shell and I don't even remember what shell OpenLinux defaulted it for me. Now I have to buy a used Matrox video card just to run linux. These winhardware just won't leave me alone.

    cy


    /_____\
    vvvvvvv../|__/|
    ...I../O,O....|
    ...I./. .......|
    ..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
    ...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|
  • People will choose hardware because of linux/bsd support.
    ABIT knows this. Good for them. Other manufactures should learn from this example... (Ehem, Intel...)

    Now just just give me thier tools and drivers for RedHat. Thanks! ;)

  • First, this is really no different than what they've been doing for the miserysoft products since DOS 1.0: the manufacturer puts his name on the manuals, and tweaks it here and there, in ways that don't break compatibility.

    Second, I get the impression that they've just taken a standard distro (someone above said RedHat) and put in a few bells and whistles which will work with their hardware. If that's true, there shouldn't be any fragmentation problems. It'll be what a knowledgable user would set up if he started with the base distro and added a few linux specific goodies from the manufacturers web-site. But this approach is probably better for PR.

    Third, that mascot might look a bit (ABIT?) better in 3D. Or not... I'm not so sure whether I like it.

    Fourth, this seems overall to ba a good thing. It will be that much easier for someone to make linux work on their hardware. I've never had any problems that way, but my experience has been very limited. This tells us that ABIT will be considering Linux when they design their boards. No point, now, to make a choice that makes it harder to run linux.
  • www.gentus.com kills my netscape(4.7) on IRIX6.5.4 I get either a bus error or memory fault just after the background turns grey on the page :(
  • Maybe we should have a central site, where we can mention which patches (kernel/user space) should be applied to get the most out of insert_your_hardware_here. I would rather see people running Redhat than Redhat_clone. Support the vendors that do the work!

    Also, you'd expect there would be a lag time for bug fixes et al in these distros.

    I'd rather see these people maintain a good HOWTO on optimizing a linux distribution for their hardware. This way, people running debian or slackware can get the benifits of these kinds of hardwares too.

    my 2 cents.

  • Abit introducing an entirely new distro is dumb. Why can't they just write kernel modules for the specific peripherals on their MB?

    If we had a GNU/Linux standard for the core libs things we be so much simpler for everyone - even the Linux gurus. Imagine....

    RedHat Linux 9.0!
    --Featuring GNU/Linux std.libs ver 2.0
    --Cool App 1
    --Cool App 2
    --kernel modules for Abit, Asus, ...
    --kernel modules for SB Live, ...

    App writers could write to the std.lib version and be assured the libraries they need are included in the distro (or include them themselves). An install program would detect your hardware, test it against all the kernel mods, and install the correct ones. If you want bleeding edge stuff, go to the OEM web site like we have to do now.

    Wait. Forget all that. That sounds too much like Windows.

    -tim
  • Precisely. That's just like if Dell preconfigured their Windows boxes with special drivers for their hardware, and called it "Dell Windows". ...which isn't far from the truth.

    So they screwed up and called it a distribution, so what? I *like* having my preconfigured computer work correctly, even if they call the OS "Charlene". (wait... that'd be pretty cool, actually... :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • I would rather have automatic detection of various hardware and then install the various conf files based upon that information. Having a seperate distro will just end up locking you into that hardware even if it's not the cheapest.

    I think that what he/she meant was that it would be nice if there were a distribution loaded with drivers for Windows dependent hardware. That way you could buy any machine without having to exchange stuff (like a WinModem for example).

    Personally, I think it would be a good idea. It wouldn't have to be for that hardware only. Just have more of those types of drivers (assuming they are available)... maybe on a bonus CD that could (assuming it was all GPLed) be included with any distribution.

    Anyway, my point is, if it's done right , it would be a good thing.

    q

  • This is an extremely good reason for standardization of distros IMHO. I believe that as long as the distros are mainly ways to add value and package linux differently there is no harm done by having a million of them as long as they are all decent and they are interoperable.
    If each distro puts its libs, config files, and executables in the same places, The danger of any real splintering is lessened greatly. In fact, as long as the libraries aren't too different between the various distributions, there will be few splintering problems indeed. After all, if you want to change something, you can always just go download the source, compile, configure and all your worries disappear.

  • Why not (Score:1)

    by J4 ( 449 )
    A lotta people just want to press and go with a minimum of fuss.
    And its not like it cost Abit much to develop it.
    What I really want to know is are they going to throw
    in a copy with every BP6?
    Thats about the only way I could see them moving
    a few units.
    The latest SuSE supports BP6 out of the box FWIW.
    OTOH This _really_ doesn't help anybody to get a leg up
    on the whole *nix way of doing things and in fact I think having a distro
    for particular hardware can end up being somewhat off putting
    for people that just don't have the tinkering gene.
    What do you supposed to do when you have
    2 pieces of hardware that each have their own distro?
    My god that would require some research! We can't have that.
  • God, why did they have to write that page in FrontPage? It hurts to look at! And it uses basic HTML that any knowledgable 8-year-old would shun. And the images are worse... and...

    I mean, come on, my web pages are crappy, but they just don't compare to the horror that is "Gentus Linux".

    It's the HTML equivalent of "It R00Lz? D00D? GENTUS L1NUKZ 0WNZ U???"
    In fact, why don't they have an option like that built into FrontPage, so that newbies don't write pages like that?
    Oh, because they would. Gotcha.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Tuning is what is needed, no new distros. (Score:3)

    by Bryan Andersen ( 16514 ) on Monday February 21, 2000 @01:04PM (#1255415) Homepage

    Tuning a distro for a specific machine is what needs to be done. Start from one of the main distributions then tune it to your hardware offering. When you ship a Linux/*BSD distro with your system, ship a tuned version for the hardware shipped. Making a new distro is way overkill. It may even be counter productive.

  • Hardware Specific distros (Score:3)

    by DaveHowe ( 51510 ) on Monday February 21, 2000 @01:07PM (#1255416)
    I don't really think this is a major issue - it appears to be a pretty standard RedHat distro, with the correct hardware setup already made; OEM copies of Windows (in particular, the HP varient that doesn't even HAVE a real install disk, just a flashable image) have been doing this for years in the Microsoft world, without people saying it is going to splinter Windows and end the Windows dream.....
    --

  • Re:Agreed. (Score:1)

    by J4 ( 449 )
    Problem here WRT dmesg is Abit _didn't_ write the patch for HPT66 chipset. All they did was apply it. Seems like they are targeting the ignorant (not a put down per se, everybodies ignorant in one way or another).
  • Hi, I usually save this for forums where people actually ask for help, but..


    http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/SiS2.html#2 [xfree86.org]


    Information for SiS Users : Supported chips
    Previous: Introduction
    Next: XF86Config Options

    2. Supported chips

    SiS 86c201

    (External hardware clock)

    SiS 86c202, SiS 86c2x5, SiS 5597/5598, SiS 6326, SiS 530, SiS 620

    (Internal clock synthesizer)

    Color expansion is not supported by the engine in 16M-color graphic mode.

    Information for SiS Users : Supported chips
    Previous: Introduction
    Next: XF86Config Options


    It's called documentation.

  • One could see this as a protest against the failure to include UDMA support in other distributions. (There are very good reasons, certain drives spontaneously corrupt data under UDMA) In essence, getting UDMA to work under many distros is somewhat difficult and obscure. (you can email me for pointers,which are beyond the scope of this comment)
  • of course Hedrick wrote the initial patch. not sure if abit did any value-add work on it (my uneducated guess is that they didn't - they just applied the existing patch and called it an AbitLinux distro - sigh).

    and to be honest, abit only used the HighPoint controller chip. they didn't even design it. in fact, they didn't even write their own bios for their board - no motherboard vendors does this; they contract it out to award or phoenix (same thing today) or ami.

    so abit had NOTHING to do with the HPT66 controller - they're just one of the well-known users of that chip.

    if all you have to do is use a chip to qualify for being a linux distro maker, then we're up for a wild ride in the next months/years to come..

    --

  • There is a move to try to bring some control to this. &nbsp It is called the Linux Standard Base [linuxbase.org], the goal to create a set of standards for compatibility between distributions as well as encourage more app porting to Linux in general. &nbsp The project is being supported by most of the major distros and I recall them having a big get together not too long ago.

    Their motto - "Standardizing the Penguin". &nbsp Pretty cool and timely.

  • Why not? I like it.

    Someone said, "I don't want to change distros when I change MB." You might have to anyway. You might need a different on-board ethernet driver. Or on-board SCSI driver. Or on-board video driver...

    All this really is, is a standard distribution with patches and the right drivers configured from the start. Every MB already comes with its little config floppy and its little diagnostic utility floppy. Why not ship a full blown OS while they're at it?

    I really don't see the problem. As always, you can load up your favorite version. Everyone gets so excited every time a new vendor ships Red Hat disks with a box. I think that's great too, but some prefer SuSE. Others prefer Debian. I still like Slackware. We have to re-install everything even if RH came pre-installed.

    This is a great way for a newbie to load up Linux with a good chance of success. (S)he won't have to worry about recompiling and drivers and libraries and modules and patches and all the stuff which the rest of us have figured out already.
  • As long as they make it available under the GPL, I fail to see anything seriosly bad is going to happen because of this.

    Maybe it is overkill to create their own distribution (and what's with that name - it has got to be the most wierd name for a Linux distro yet!), but hey we get more drivers.

    What we maybe need is a central place for drivers, where hardware producers (and all the other people in the community which make drivers) can submit their drivers for Linux.
    They would then be sure that all distributions would get them and, if the driver is working as it should, include it in their next distribution. Furthermore, users would have a single place to go for updated drivers.

    Sadly, I think it would be extremely hard to get something like that up and running, but it sure would be great.

    Or does something like that already exist?
  • It's a natural step for distributions to be sold that match specific hardware configurations. Windows clients have been shipping like this for a while, but the potential for customizing Linux to hardware is even greater, so expect much more interesting things. The common distros now will probably become increasingly used as base distributions for more specific distributions.

    I suspect most of the people who are currently linux users will still be customizing their own boxes from one of the base distributions though.
  • it dosen't matter to me. I'm still going to use slack :)

    no but seriously. I feel it can only help the linux community. Because in my mind the linux community is a rare beast indeed. One that thrives on fragmentation. Dont ask me why but it does. The bigger and more diverse we get. The stronger we become, so I say Bring everyone on-board the linux distro train..

  • this would easily solve most of the concerns posted on this page

    Simply take the posted open source, and pick out the enhancements. Place into your own code, and voila! Your distribution makes theirs obsolete. That and the fact that most people will want to use a distro that is at least somewhat popular - or roll their own entirely from *raw* materials.

  • At least they are making a serious effort to support linux.

    yes and no. yes, since they're showing some support for linux in that they don't totally turn the other way when you mention linux to them.

    no, since they did practically NO work other than apply the Hedrick patch to standard linux kernel source. applying a patch does NOT give you the right to claim to be a distro house!

    otoh, I wonder if this 'distro' is just pure PR work to rally 'round the linux bandwagon. and, from another angle, their tech support might be easier since they can now just say, "download OUR distro and all will work. thanks for calling; have a nice day. [click]"

    --

  • Oh, don't be a troll, you just can't make a Windows -> FreeBSD comparason. FreeBSD is an Open Source, Unix OS that is very reliable.
  • >I cannot see my mom compiling the latest emu10k
    > module and actually inserting it. HUH?

    if you were a good son you'd write a script to automate that for her.
  • Buy an ATI-512 video Card, and get ATI-Windows!
    Comes bundled with ATI/Microsoft Office.

    Trintron Macintosh, Anyone? :-)
  • Use mozilla, it works.

  • Re:Embedded Linux (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No No NO!! Everthing must be WindowsCE!!!! Your shaver will need a P-III with 128Mb of RAM and dissapate 150W of heat. Then it will blue-screen when you've shaved half your face - forcing you to go to work looking like a gimp.
  • This was common before MS asserted power over the vendors. Things like Compaq DOS 3.x and Compaq Windows 3.0 were pretty common (Compaq used to have a funky display controller that required some custom DOS stuff.)

    There were also certain Compaq servers that would only run a customized version of NT 3.1 that includes a Compaq HAL. Obviously this (and the Abit Linux) stuff is meant to be transitional until the vendor includes the code in their main tree.
    --
  • I have an abit bp6 motherboard, and can't get a month of uptime, despite a massive amount of attention. (Custom kernels, noapic kernel parameters, bios updates, switching to ATA33, Hedrick's IDE patch) More importantly, it's not just me. Look at linux-abit [mail-archive.com] and you'll see that basically nobody can get a month of uptime off of that motherboard, under either moderate or high load. I'm willing to go so far as to say that the BP6 is not stable under linux. I'm suspecting it's not stable, period. I would love to be proven wrong, and find out what sort of witch's brew abit recommends for that board.
  • I think some of you may have missed the grass roots aspect of linux, and abit motherboards. The target of the bp6 is hardware tweekers/hackers (used very loosely). Is it so bad that abit give a free linux distro with a motherboard(I am only assuming that this is their plan). As long as the distro doesen't suck, it may bring some new people to the linux camp, and is that so bad? Besides, they get some free press, and define their ongoing support for linux.
  • You guys are assuming that there is such a thing as an OS that runs on any platform without any tweaking.

    Remember that OSes *ARE* written/tweaked to run on specific hardwares. You can't run an OS without the hardware.

    Although Linux can run on many different platforms, someone had to get down to the nitty grittys and change/tweak the code so that it would work on that particular platform.

    This distribution is the same... although I think it would probably be better to just provide a module for the ATA66 controller instead of an entire distribution. But ABIT is a kickass company, this just shows that they would go to extreme lengths to make their customers happy. I might consider this distribution though, since I have a ABIT BP6.

  • When will it stop??!!?? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why doesn't Slashdot come out with th distro? Why not Micro$oft Linux? Why not a Sun Micro Linux? (I guess there is SGI) My point is, when will this stop? Linus takes care of the Kernel so there aren't 50 kernels out in the public floating around claiming to be the best! This is one reason why the BSDs are better. There is only one FreeBSD (well, maybe a few), one NetBSD, and one OpenBSD. Linux Distros should consolidate...options are nice, but we all do just fine with one Linux kernel, why can't we do fine with a Security Distro, a widely Portable Distro, and a high performace distro?
  • Well for one thing, a module for HPT66 chipset isn't going to help you boot off the UDMA66 channels. You need it compiled in.

  • Maybe its not so bad... (Score:5)

    by ripler ( 19188 ) on Monday February 21, 2000 @01:31PM (#1255446)
    OK, at first I said "What are they thinking?!?"

    I thought, why don't they just make some RPMs since their ripping RedHat. That would keep it simple.

    Then I read their snazzy little explanation. I have an ABIT BP6 board, and I have managed to get everything working on several distributions. The only problem is that with any normal distribution, you have no initial support for the DMA/66 controller. So, if you have a system with one drive and you want to use the faster controller, you have to install it with the drive on the DMA/33 controller, and then move it to the DMA/66 controller after installing and tweaking.

    The first time I had to go through all that, it was a challenge. I had fun. Although, I'm not sure most people would agree. The second time, I didn't bother. I just bought more drives, and installed to the DMA/33 controller. I tweaked some things and put my more demanding partitions on the new drives (DMA/66).

    I like to use a different distro every few months just to keep a finger on the pulse of how linux is changing. I sure wouldn't enjoy doing an install to that machine so often if I only had one drive.

    This is not an issue of making sure something is supported in the kernel. It is supported with kernel patches, and can be with any distro. Too bad no distro thinks to put support in to their install. This must be a job for Gentus' (or whatever that name was).

    So before you guys go off slamming this, read a little of the BP6 pseudo howto and the docs to install a distro on the DMA/66 controller. Most folks wouldn't bother, and therefore wouldn't get the full benefit of the hardware they paid for.

    TheRipler

    Any grammatical errors are purely intentional.
  • Creative has one at opensource.creative.com. Pros: cool digital matrix mixer, bass and treble controls, up to 24 programs can open /dev/dsp and play noise at once. Cons: no Soundfonts, external MIDI only.

    ALSA has the other one (which will probably at 2.5/2.6 become the kernel's built-in driver) at www.alsa-project.org. This one has a more traditional mixer setup with some minor bugs, but it has great-sounding Soundfont and MIDI playback that more than makes up for it's other problems IMO :)
  • That's what initrd stuff is for. Red Hat already lets you boot off devices that are only modules using initrd, I don't see how the HPT-66 stuff could be any different, unless it can't be compiled as a module...
  • Having unique distributions for particular pieces of hardware frightens me. In my opinion, one of the great thing about Windows is that I can go to the store where there is only one copy on the shelf. I don't want to be concerned with the particular pieces of hardware that I own.

    If dozens of specialized copies appear I'm afraid that the public impression of Linux will be tarnished. Which one do I need? I know I have a sound blaster... but which one? Even though this way of thinking is ridiculous since the packages will probably be built around a commercial distribution.... I think the confusion will occur (and is probably what the hardware companies are banking on to sell their custom distro's)

    Instead of having specialized copies of the distributions, I believe the masses would benefit more if hardware companies (or anyone...) would create a simple way to drop in a new device driver, no strings, every time. The user would go to the hardware companies site (or floppy/CD), get the driver, click on it and reboot (if required). No thought would be required... the point is that you dont have to do ANY work, or read any README, be concerned with your kernel version..... and it would work everytime.

    I'm not saying this would be easy...but for the case of a motherboard that wont boot without the correct drivers, having a way to EASILY plug in modules during the installation would be great. Whatever the solution is, I believe it must be SUPER EASY.

  • No HPT366 + DVD (Score:3)

    by heroine ( 1220 ) on Monday February 21, 2000 @02:26PM (#1255474) Homepage
    Yes, you can get HPT366 on the BP6. You can also get DVD on it. But forget about HPT366 and DVD in the same kernel. They just won't compile together.
  • I hear things like this and my immediate reaction is that this is great. One of the really awesome things about the whole open source situation allows for anyone to go and make a custom tailored operating system package specially suited to their own needs, and still be compatible with all the other specialized linux packages out there.

    Then I think about the average computer user (these days). What do they see? Well, they see RedHat linux, Corel Linux, Caldera Linux, Debian GNU/Linux, Storm Linux, Slackware Linux, Yellow Dog Linux, Stampede Linux, Abit Linux, etc etc. They were thinking about trying out Linux, until they started to look for a particular distribution to try out and got a migraine trying to figure out which one is the best. Now for people already familiar with the way Linux works, this really isn't that big of a deal. I know, and most of the Slashdot audience (I'm suspecting) knows that Linux is Linux, and all the different distributions really are nothing more than different packaging on the same product. But I think this is something that will escape the first time user. And how long before there is the backlash against all these different flavors that do nothing but confuse the vast populace who want the power but do not want to learn how to use it. What then happens when the force of clueless billions force Linux into a nicely shaped box, trumpeting that now this great package of power can be easily used by all with no fear of serious repurcussion.

    I'm not about to go into whether this is a good or a bad thing. That, I fear, is nothing but fodder for the flame-mongers (but surely there aren't any flame-mongers at Slashdot ... *cough* *cough*). But I do think it is a topic that requires some serious thought by any and all Linux users. Often I muse over whether or not it would be a good thing to have everyone and their brother using Linux. On the one hand I think, yes, it would be of great benefit to all to have at their diposal an operating system and software environment that was of such a wonderful caliber and rooted in the best of ideology at the same time. And then I wonder how painful it might be to be forced to sit back and watch the maddening hordes take something that has real value and trivialize it and dismantle it and distill it into easy to swallow placated bits, forever doomed to be taken for granted with that high degree of apathy that all things taken for granted are bound to receive.

    Well, I had intended this to be a comment of only a few sentences so I will climb down off my soapbox now.

  • We drunken admins resent that. No distro can replace out jobs!
  • It's not a problem it's a good thing. If this version fails to take off then it will just die without affecting the base version of linux. If it does well it will no doubt be incorporated into the standard kernel anyway. It's not clear if this version contains special drivers or is most the standard kernel preconfigured for the hardware.
  • It seems that, from an image standpoint, FreeBSD is the next jumping-off point for the "forget the mainstream, support MY OS!" crowd. Once Linux becomes common, you'll see a lot of commercial development and simple, easy-to-use applications. This, coupled with the fact that even non-CS grads will recognize Linux, insults the isolationism that this crowd requires.

    Go FreeBSD! It's like Linux, but better! Honestly! It's reliable! Come and see the difference! Anyone? Anyone? I'm over here! Listen to me!
  • I'm not sure I follow you on that "/dev" comment. Why shouldn't applications access files in /dev? Treating devices like files is the Unix way of doing things and there's nothing wrong with it either. The alternative (as I see it) is the Windows way of doing things, in which we have enormous amounts of individual system calls, rather than just using something like ioctl() and specifying different parameters. And then you would have to abstract away from data processing, because your apps would no longer be able to read and write to device files, like your modem or soundcard or printer or joystick, etc...

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • And what about those poor suckers that have an top of the line sound card, and top or the line video card and top of the line UDMA controller. What are they going to give up on... which vendor's RedHat release are they to run?

    If someone has their hard drive connected to an ata/66 port on their abit motherboard, they won't be able to install RedHat (or any other distro, I'd imagine) because RedHat requires a hard drive to install and doesn't recognize drives connected to the ata/66 on an abit motherboard. This is quite different from a sound card, which isn't required during installation and a driver can be installed at a later time if the distro doesn't have one.
  • No shit. I totally agree. What I hate about FP is that not only are ' turned into ?, but it always looks like shit on my Linux Netscape. Worst of all, the web page is a mile long but only takes up 4 inches across of my 19 inch monitor. Come on! I have all this monitor space, use it!

  • I don't know about Linux for ABIT systems....

    But I've GOT to get me a copy of that Linux for drunk-sysadmins. Extra large icons in X, double font size in text mode. Special "anti-wobble" code on the mouse routines.

    Of course if your system dosen't have one of those spiffy 20x beer can holders it won't do you much good.
  • "New ABIT Mainboards with Gentus? Shipping 13/February/2000

    ABIT will be shipping Gentus? with all motherboards, including all of the new models from ABIT.
    For more info on the newest ABIT motherboards please go to:
    http://www.abit.com.tw
    "

    Now, regardless of whether this is 'merely' a re-packaged version of Redhat or not, _think_ about this a moment!

    _Every_ motherboard ABIT ships is going to have a copy of Linux along with it. And if it's repackaged RedHat, so what? RedHat is a high-quality, professional distribution, and now it's being delivered to a potentially _vast_ quantity of new users.

    Gear up the newbie sites folks. If this trend continues, we're going to see Linux gaining a huge chunk of market share very soon.
  • Why should your mom have too? Unless she is the one buying a new sound card and installing it, which shows she has some sort of technical skill already...
    Not everyone has the ability to be a Linux admin., but not everyone needs to be...
    There is a space for pure users, who can call on you occationally if they have a problem..
    Solaris, etc have been filling this nitch in business for ages..
  • Ok, Abit is taking RedHat, customizing the install bootdisk and kernel, adding at least one new tool, and giving it away free over the internet and with EVERY new motherboard shipped.. That's right, every motherboard that leaves Abit's hands will come with Linux.
    What are you all wining about? It's not as if they decided to throw out the conventional file layout or config format or ANYTING... It seems this is a free, officially unsuported release of Linux made to work easily on their hardware and any other hardware out there. I can't see any downside, except that people might not know they are really using a RedHat variant.
    First we complain Linux isn't getting enough respect.. Then a company ships out a Linux distro with it's products, and all we can do is wine. This move by Abit is a good thing that will put Linux in the hands of more people who wouldn't otherwise have it, and make it easier to install on a particular piece of hardware.
  • If this distro is faster, I am going to use it! I think right now the bottleneck of my system is in I/O, and especially disk access. Upgrading to ATA66 certainly would improve things.

    Yeah. Right. It's been said before, and in many places, but most IDE drives currently on the market cannot sustain a transfer rate of more than 12M/sec due to limitations in the head/disk assemblies. That won't even saturate a UDMA/33 channel. You might notice a *slight* performance increase at the very beginning of a disk operation, when the drive uses its onboard cache, but for big jobs, forget it. UDMA/66 is really an investment in the future, since in a few years, hard drives might be able to support that kind of I/O speed. Of course, by then, marketing will have us all buying UDMA/256....

    It is good that Abit is supporting their hardware in Linux. Why a distro, though? Why not just cut a deal with RedHat/SuSE/Caldera so those distributors get whatever hackarounds Abit came up with and Abit gets a "Works great with $DISTRO" endorsement?

  • This, in and of itself, is not that bad of a thing. Splinter distros can be made to be very useful, and this a great example. It was a horrendous chore to install Linux on a UDMA-66 motherboard before now simply because no distro (AFAIK) has UDMA-66 support for the install kernel. Go to www.bp6.com and read up if you don't believe me. Abit fixed this problem, and everyone is better off because of it.

    What I think everyone is worried about here, rather they realize it or not, is the lack of standards. Linux really has none. I quit fooling with KDE a year or two ago, so this might have changed, but it used to everything in /opt. Why? Completely nonsensical. Discussing the relative merits of /usr versus /usr/local would start a jihad amongst some bored Slashdotters. There just aren't standards for where to put things like there are in Windows, and because of that Linux is always playing catch up in terms of developer support. Even something as mundane as popping up a web browser from within a program turns into the chore a.) finding which browser came bundled with this distro, then b.) finding where it's located in this distro. Windows does this all in the registry. Now the coherent thing to do here would be to create a single, unified standard for something link this - "Okay, henceforth /usr/bin/browser will be a symlink to Netscape/Opera/Lynx/whatever you want."

    These kind of inter-distro compatility issues pop up all over the place. RedHats prior to 5 came with nonshadowed passwords for some reason. I could write a book on the compiling problems I solved for people who were getting things to compile on the (shadowed) Slackware machines but couldn't make it work on their RH box for this reason.

    This is just the tip of the iceberg. Good luck, as a developer, if you want to bring up a PPP modem link from inside your program. If the user is on Redhat, you could try "/usr/sbin/usernetctl ppp0 up" and it might work. On SuSE, it's 'wvdial' and/or YaST. It's probably different for Debian and Slackware too. If they're on KDE on any distro, they might have kPPP installed - who knows?

    It's things like this, I think, that often annoy developers into giving up on porting/writing apps for Linux. There's so much more work involved in just figuring out what you're dealing with that I think they all figure it's more worth their time to write another app for Windows than port an existing one to Linux.

    --
  • I assume you mean the DVD IOCTLs patch and the UDMA patch. This finally got fixed. Check out the mailing list archives at opensource.creative.com for the dxr2 project. Jens Axobe (please pardon spelling errors, it's early) finally got the two patches together. Using them currently on my bp6 and they work beautifully!

    I don't know if the link ever made it to his main site. If not, drop me an e-mail and I'll give you the latest one I've got.

    Now if I could only get my USB mouse to work too... :-)
  • If they just going to give it to OEMs so that they will pre-install it - why not? Especially that it's just pre-configured RedHat and they call it "distribution" just for ego-inflating and PR-waving reasons.

  • Have you tried kernel > 2.3.30 ? And you're not getting APIC errors ??

    I've been running a BP6 with 256MB RAM and dual 466 celerons with 2.2.13 in SMP mode with no APIC errors for months. To what specifically are you referring?

  • > And you're not getting APIC errors ??

    I get those damn things constantly. I'm glad to know it's not just me. ;-)
  • Their direct support of Linux can only be a good thing.

    this is true. but support is one thing; rolling your own distro JUST for a single patch is way overboard.

    I'd like to see an official patchset from them and have it integrated into the kernel. you can support linux the direct way or the roundabout way (which is what they've done so far).

    so I'm not knocking them, completely; just the fact that they are trying to grab too much linux PR - and doing it in the wrong way.

    --

  • Yeah. Just like S3 and Video cards or Rockwell and Modems.

    When you make the chipsets and unknown manufacturers use your refrence designes plus your brand name to sell the damnd things you may just as well be a manufacturer.

    PS : The VIAGRA had that in bold multicolord letters on the largest chip on the board ( not counting the changeble CPU ). VIA was also plaster all over the box.

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