Core_2_Duo_Support

Revision 27 as of 2006-09-21 08:12:29

Clear message

We want to be sure that Ubuntu is fully compatible with the new Intel Core 2 Duo Processors.

This is a page to track bugs and discussions related to supporting this.

Problems

Installer Freezes on Not Finding IDE CD/DVD-ROM Drive

I believe this is caused due to the Intel P965 chipset has no more integrated IDE channel, thus the motherboard usually has an additional chip onboard for an IDE channel. In the current Gigabyte (I got one of them) and ASUS (think they have it too) this is a JMicron JMB363. Until very recently the kernel had a bug inside that made it unable to access the IDE/PATA channel. So If you have and IDE drive or HDD left you will not be able to use it.

I would guess most people have a SATA drive with such a new computer. The trick to it is then to avoid the PATA CDROM for installation (though the BIOS can boot off it). Utilising USB sticks, you can do the following:

Either of these methods has worked for me just fine.

More Info

Hardware Affected

  • GIGABYTE GA-965P-DQ6 P965 775 (Motherboard), bsodmike (06-09-2006)
  • GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS4 P965 775 (Motherboard)
  • GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 P965 775 (Motherboard)
  • GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 P965 775 (Motherboard)
  • MSI MS-7235 P965 Neo Series (Motherboard)
  • ASUS P5B P965 Series (Motherboard)
  • ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (Motherboard)
  • Intel BLKDP965LTCK (Motherboard)
  • ABIT AB9 Series (Motherboard)
  • ECS P965T-A (Motherboard)
  • Please add more Ubuntu Users

Fixed in Dapper Status/Notes

Not Yet

Fixed in Edgy Status/Notes

I tried Kubuntu Knot 2 tonight with no luck. It got to the start screen, and hit install and it freezes to a blank screen with a blinking cursor at the top left of the screen.

I've managed to get the edgy kernel to recognize my PATA drives by compiling in the disk controller modules and passing all-generic-ide at boot. I'm not sure yet if all of the ide modules have to be compiled in, or just ide-generic. From dmesg, it looks like ide-generic has to be initialized before anything else in order for this to work (which is why it can't be compiled as a module). Maybe somebody can figure out how to do this with the initrd, but for now compiling in ide-generic works for me. This works on 2.6.17.11, compiled from the git tree. I haven't tried the dapper kernel yet.

I tried Ubuntu Knot 3 ("Edgy Eft" - Alpha amd64 (20060915.1)) today with the "all-generic-ide" option without success. Unfortunately it seems that the patch from Alan Cox is not yet included in the kernel on the disc.

Work-Arounds

Success Stories

Story 1

I have managed to install Ubuntu Edgy Eft Knot 2 on my 965-based Core 2 Duo computer and I want to share my experiences. My computer has the following specs:

  • Asus P5B motherboard
  • Maxtor SATA II disc
  • Asus DVD-RW

For the installation, I have bought a SATA->IDE adapter from [http://www.conrad.de Conrad] (Art-Nr 974452 - 62) which worked for my Asus DVD-RW but not for my LG-DVD-RAM. On my board, there are 5 internal SATA connectors. One belongs to the JMicro controller and the other 4 to the ICH8 controller. Number 1 and 2 are red coloured and number 3 and 4 are black coloured. I have my harddisc connected to the first SATA port. In my case it was necessary to connect the CD/DVD drive to the second port and not to the third or fourth. In the BIOS, the IDE configuration had to be configured to Enhanced -> AHCI.

I tried the following CDs:

  • LIVE (pre) Knot3 (20060915.1) amd64 : a lot of bus errors, timeouts during boot up. It took about 10 minutes to boot, so I canceled.
  • LIVE Knot2 amd64 : the same as above
  • ALTERNATE Knot2 amd64 : Pressing F6 at the grub menu and adding "all-generic-ide irqpoll" had worked for me.

After the installation and the first reboot, I had to edit the grub entry by pressing "e" and add the options mentioned above. I added these options to "# defoptions..." and "# altoptions..." in "/boot/grub/menu.lst" and run "update-grub" afterwards.

This was all I had to do to install Ubuntu using a SATA->IDE adapter. If you have any questions, ask me (Zulu5).

Story 2

I used the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/instlux instlux] and instluxNETUbuntu6_06 to install without CD. Worked without problems on P5B Deluxe. Now I need to wait for fixes to get CD/DVD and 1GB LAN working -but everything else seems to work fine.