Eva Myers wrote: > I'm having some trouble installing SL44 on a new machine from World of > Computers. As far as WOC are aware, the only difference between this > machine and the one I was asking about in December is that the IDE > DVD-RW drive has been replaced by a SATA drive because they were > having difficulty getting a different version of Linux to communicate > with the IDE drive. > > However, the installation problems are quite different. Rather then > freezing when I boot from the boot CD without any kernel options, the > install process claims that it cannot find any hard drives. I tried > using the all-generic-ide and pci=nommconf options - the hard drive > was then detected, but the install process hung while formatting the > root filesystem! > > The relevant hardware details (copied from the quotation) are: > > Motherboard + processor: Intel D965SSCK Core 2 Duo 6300 2MB cache > Hard drive: 160GB - ST3160811AS - 7200rpm Serial ATA > DVD drive: Samsung DVD RW (+/-) OEM Dual Layer/16xDVD+R,8xDVD+RW,16xRead-SATA > > The Seagate website does not seem to have any hard drives with the > exact model number above but does have a ST3160812AS-RK - could this > be why the computer is behaving differently? I was hoping they would > also have a Linux driver to download but they didn't. > > Is the change in the DVD drive at all likely to be the cause of the > problem, and could someone please explain how to get the installation > working? Sorry for all the stupid questions. > Eva. In general, the oldest the hardware, the more possible to be supported by GNU/Linux. Also, when getting specific new hardware, it is useful to check whether its web site provides a driver for GNU/Linux (I have learned this first hand when I had to buy a new 56 Kbps fax/modem for SL 4.4. Had a Zoom but they did not provide a GNU/Linux driver for it, and I got a Tornado one that they provide a GNU/Linux driver for it. SATA is a relative new technology, and I do not think there is/will be SL 4.x support for it, other than the drivers that SATA controller makers provide themselves. I think that the upcoming SL 5 will probably support SATA. I think you may have to wait for 5. The same I think for Core Duo processor, I am not sure you will get a good multithreading with SL 4.x. In the meantime waiting for SL5, you may use the latest Fedora Core, if you are talking about home use.