Distributions for the 965P motherboard
I would like to start a discussion about what distributions work with 965P motherboards and to tell one way I got Linux to install. I have a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 motherboard. I experience two different issues when attempting to install distributions. The first is that my CD is not recognized, because the distribution did not include the JMicron PATA driver. The available Kubuntu and OpenSuse address this problem, though with OpenSuse you have to tell the installer to use the JMicron driver. (You can do this by selecting the right menu in the OpenSuse install, but I forget exactly how I did it, but I did not think it was hard to find.) The second issue is that the NIC is a Marvell 88E8056 and the driver for it is in no ordinairy distribution I can find. As a result you can't use the internet.
I have found one solution, but I would like to invite other people to tell how they got Linux to work on their 965P motherboards.
My solution is to download sarge-custom-1115.iso from the AMDD64 section (not from the i386 section at the top of the page!) at
http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/
This is a custom net installation of Debian and there is more information about Debian net installation at
http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
To make this installation work, there is one additional bit of information that you must know that isn't documented anywhere, and is exceptionally confusing. As it is a net installation, once you get the base system running, you have to download the rest from a Debian repository. Now, my logic would be that the installer says "sarge", I should download from the stable repositories, but I was wrong! You have to use the Debian testing repositories (or unstable, but that would probably be a bad idea).
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main
worked for me. You pass this information to the installer when offered the choice of several ways to finish the install
http
ftp
cd
edit sources by hand (or something like that)
You select edit source by hand--which puts you into a nano editor and you are editing the file
/etc/apt/source.list
which is by Debian to find software. The nano editor is easy to use. All the relevent keys are listed at the bottom. (If you are a newbie, ^ means the control key.) You simply add the line
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main
or the appropriate debian repository for where you live.
You can keep or eliminate the line already there. It's commented out anyway. (The "#" sign comments out a line.)
By the way, there is a slight issue with this installation. During start-up you'll see some stuff about issues connecting with the web. I don't think they are anything to worry about.
