Re: a couple hardware inquiries

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>I'm going to be building a couple machines soon and I was wondering if anybody
>>has used the Asus A7V motherboard with Linux.  If so, how did it go?  It looks
>>like a very impressive piece of hardware: 8 IDE devices (2x dma66/100
>>controllers, 2x standard IDE), USB, Scsi firmware (requires additional Asus
>>hardware for Scsi controller, though), etc...
>Hi Wes, I'm currently building an A7V box, and my biggest problem so far
>is convincing my old P-90 that I still love it too.
>Yes, the A7V is impressive, but before you get *too* excited, 
>consider that on the A7V...
>PCI 1 is shared with AGP,
>PCI 2 is shared w/ ATA/100 controller,
>PCI 4 and 5 share with each other as well as USB_
>that leaves only slot 3 unshared...not terribly unusual, but here's 
>hoping your devices play together nice.
>(actually, slot 3 *is* shared, but it's with that seldom-used funny 
>little AMR (Advanced Modem Riser) slot just below slot 5)

Long painful experience has given me a bias against "integrated" junk, even though it is cheaper up frontr.  If I'm building a box that I hope will have a reasonable life span, and that I wish to upgrade/expand in the future I steer toward more "generic" motherboards and add the components I need, so at least I know "all" about their interaction and can yank them later and replace them with something else.  Some of these new wonder-boards can be down right frustrating/confusing when you need to add/change even the smallest thing.
 
>I'm a bit confused when you say " Scsi firmware (requires additional 
>Asus hardware for Scsi controller, though)" could you please explain ?
>You *do* have to work with 2 BIOS's, but the hardware is fully 
>integrated. Here's one 'gotcha' to be aware of...The Promise ATA/100 
>controller is treated as a SCSI device, so in your BIOS (The main 
>Phoenix BIOS) you need to be sure to assign "SCSI/onboard ATA Boot 
>Device" ahead of "IDE" in the boot sequence. (as well as setting 
>"Onboard ATA device first" to "yes")

Wierd?  Any rational for why they do that?