Linux Format forums

[zarathustra]

Hi,
I read quite often in the mag about SATA being "ubiquitous in new PC's" also the Penguin being the only x86-64bit os for the past few years, hence 64bit linux is a mature proposition. Hmmm.

Have you tried installing Linux on SATA drives? Heck as my other post points out ONLY FC4/2 can find my controller, yet it is a common chipset and driver. Even then it requires a separate boot drive, flash, spare PATA or worse a floppy! *yuck*

Debian won't even look at an AMD 64. Maybe you should be clear in your articles that Linux (as in the Kernel) supports the processor but not the accompanying hardware! *yes sarcasm is the order of the day* Linus has had several years to get this right, maybe he should delegate if the simple matters are too much! Linux is sought for the desktop as much as anything else, so concentrating on scaleability (2.6 kernel) is rather like shooting one self in the foot when the simple things go unworked.

As further explanation, I think Linus is a valid target, he is to my mind 'Linux' but, nowadays, that entails more than one individual can reasonably handle. Perhaps it's time he accepted his baby has outgrown him.

Zara... *still fuming but resisting the urge to flame any more*

[nelz]

I've been booting Linux from SATA drives for almost a year. The computer has no PATA or floppy drives, GRUB is installed in the MBR of the first SATA drive.
_________________
Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

[zarathustra]

I really envy you Nelz, I am reduced to using a Flashdrive for booting. Not ideal but hey at least if I take the flash drive in my pocket no one else can boot the PC! I refuse to use the floppy as my current unit doesn't have one inbuilt instead *just to check it's feasability* I tried an external one, no probs just so slow! And again PATA, I won't use, granted my DVD drives are both PATA but you can't have everything, though I'm so glad to have escaped that old master/slave caper!

Oh one final point booting of the flashdrive 'is' a handy thing for reasons noted above, just I know I'll probably end up losing the bloody thing *Doh!*
regards Zara...

[nelz]

This sounds like a problem with your motherboard or BIOS setup. Booting is nothing to do with the Linux kernel, it happens before the kernel is loaded.
_________________
Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.