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How to install Motherboard Drivers in Linux ?

phpdog

Senior member
Hi ,

I just installed SuSE Linux 8.2 on my Lan Party NF2 ... and i was wondering about installing the motherboard drivers ?

You know in windows you can Click MyComputer/properties/Hardware/DeviceManager ... and you can see all your hardware and if any drivers need installing.

We'll is there somewhere you can do that on SuSE Linux 8.2 ?

When i try and install the driver CD it opens something called "wine" ... what is this , and what does it do ?


EDIT :

I keep getting this message :-
ERROR: You need to merge the 'winedefault.reg' file into your
Wine registry by running: `regedit winedefault.reg'
 
You don't install motherboard drivers.

You need to build support for your board (IDE, AGP, etc.) into the kernel.
 
And linux can't use Windows drivers. That's why you get:

ERROR: You need to merge the 'winedefault.reg' file into your
Wine registry by running: `regedit winedefault.reg'


>When i try and install the driver CD it opens something called "wine" ... what
> is this , and what does it do ?
WINE is subsystem, apparently automatically run by your linux distribution, wihich adapts linux to run Windows programs. It appears that linux is recognizing that you want to install something in Windows, and is telling you how to do it to work with WINE. Very neat.

Since you installed linux while using that motherboard, the install program most likely installed suitable drivers. When you boot up, there is a huge long list that scrolls by, as linux detects and installs everything. There probably should be a log file of it somewhere that linux gurus here might know about. Some linux distros have a GUI program that gives quite a bit of information about what is installed, but I don't think it would be as extensive as Windows Device Manager.

 
no sound ... Linux kept hanging when it got to the very end of the installtion and said installing onboard sound it stalled.
I rebooted and it booted up ok must have been right at the end ... anyway when i got into the desktop , it said detected new hardware "sound" tried to install and it stalled again.

I just went into the BIOS and turned the sound off ... its codec '97 or something .
 
type this in at the CLI or open up a terminal..DO NOT TYPE IN BASH$..that is just showing you program I am using :/

bash$cd /usr/src/linux

bash$make menuconfig


The comp will process abit, and then will pop up a dos-looking menu. Rumage through there and add support for all the hardware you need.
ADVICE: adding hardware, by pressing the space bar, will cycle thorugh an "M" and an asterik " * " THe asterik mean that you are compiling it as part of the kernel and that's that. The "M" signifies that you are adding it as a module, and will therfore have to load that module by adding it to the init.d file if I remember correctly.

finally, after doing that, exit while saving your changes and type this in

bash$ make dep && make clean bzImage modules modules_install

then wait like, forever, to finish compiling the kernel.

once it is all done, type this in

bash$ cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot
 
Ah-hem....

NFroce2 drivers are aviable from Nvidia's website. (NForce = NForce2)

If you have windows, boot up windows download the drivers, boot up linux and then copy the files to your linux partition. Or burn them to a CD.

If you don't have windows then the easiest way is to install a generic NIC card using the realtech chipset. Commonly aviable for less then ten bucks at any computer supply store. This is because Nvidia does not properly support Linux for their motherboards.

From their follow the directions suplied by the vendor. Mostly what you do for the NForce drivers is to untar the file and then cd into that directory and then do "make install"

But check the README's for certian!

ALSO YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RECOMPILE YOUR KERNEL!!!!!!!!!!

After the drivers are installed you may have to edit your /etc/modules.conf OR put a text file using the modules description in a /etc/modutils.d/.

It depends on how SuSE handles the modules. ALSO SUSE SHOULD HAVE DETAILED STEP BY STEP FOR BOTH THE NFORCE BOARD DRIVERS AND THE NVIDIA VIDEO CARD DRIVERS.

THE DRIVERS FOR THE NFORCE BOARD ARE NOT AVIABLE IN THE VANILLA KERNEL SOURCES OR ANY PATCHES.

They are proprietory drivers only LEGALLY aviable from nvidia's website. Although I think that Gentoo supply the drivers for it's install proccess.

The proccess for installing the Nvidia video card drivers is a bit different. It involves downloading a couple things from Suse and Suse has a specific Howto aviable for this proccess. It worked for me.


I had the mispleasure of owning a Chaintech NF2 board, They are fine boards but are bad for linux. I sold it to a freind and got a kt400-based motherboard. Much better.

Also you may want to pass the acpi=off to the kernel at boot up if you are experiancing lock ups. The power managment crap SUCKS sometimes on certian hardware. I had to do this on my nfoce2.

NVIDIA's Linux Drivers
 
I'm using the latest development sources with Andrew Morton's patchset. Everything I need for my nForce2 board is included in the kernel.

I got the onboard NIC working without any problems. Originally using nvidia's nvnet module (patched for >=2.5), and now the forcedeth module (reverse engineered).

Originally posted by: drag
I had the mispleasure of owning a Chaintech nF2 board, They are fine boards but are bad for linux. I sold it to a freind and got a kt400-based motherboard.

Heh, funny you should say that. I /just/ got this board (SL-75FRN2-L) from a friend after he got a KT600 board (he also had alot of issues with the nF2 board under Linux).

I haven't had any major problems with it.
 
Oh I forgot about 2.6.0.. uh heh (sheepish)


The nforce2 boards are cool and fast (as far as motherboards can be. 😛 ) but they are a real dissapiontment for lots of people due to the nature of Nvidia's drivers.

I was able to get it working fine, and it overclocked nicecly, but the onboard sound always ended up blowing goats. Hardware Sound, no more AC97 stuff, from now on with me. My audigy spoilt me.

(I needed the board for "special" thing I am screwing around with and the drivers realy make things complicated sometimes.)
 
Originally posted by: drag
the onboard sound always ended up blowing goats. Hardware Sound, no more AC97 stuff, from now on with me. My audigy spoilt me.

Yeah, I stuck with my SBLive! 5.1. The FRN2 is a bit of a cheapy and comes with some "Realtek sound solution". Blech.
 
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