Epox 8KRA2+: working in Linux 2.4.22 except ACPI

Prior to buying this motherboard, I searched usenet and found some
reports of problems. However, the only alternative seemed to be an
n-force board, for which Linux support was even worse, so I decided to
buy it anyway. I'm happy to report that so far everything I've tried
has been gotten to work. I'm using Debian 3.0r1, with a custom-compiled
kernel 2.4.22. The only problem is that ACPI does NOT work, apparently
due to some ACPI bugs that were introduced in 2.4.21 from what I've
read. If you enable ACPI, you get strange results like the USB
controller getting IRQ -19 (yes, negative nineteen) and failing to work.

All in all I'd give this board (and thus the KT600) a thumbs up for
Linux. It is a good alternative to "that proprietary nvidia crap".

Here's a quick summary of the features and drivers:

Feature Driver Notes/Caveats

IDE0,1 VIA 82Cxxx Will work without VIA driver, but no DMA
IDE2,3 HPT366
USB uhci or usb-uhci Must disable ACPI
Ethernet via-rhine Must disable ACPI
Sound via82cxxx_audio Joystick untested

AGP (untested)
RAID (untested)
Serial ATA (untested)
Firewire (untested)

I haven't used the Serial ATA interface or the Firewire interface, as I
have no relevant devices. There is an experimental driver for the RAID
features of the HighPoint controller (as opposed to simply making the
drives available as the HPT360/370 driver does), but I have not tested
it. I also haven't used AGP at all; I'm presently running with a PCI
video card for unrelated reasons.

The only reason I haven't tested the joystick/midi port is that I forgot
to mount it before I closed up the case and I haven't gone back and done
it yet. If you're really curious, tell me and I'll post the results
when I get around to it.

 

I'm also planning to buy this board. So you got rather stable linux system
with this mb... What about IDE DMA transfer speeds with these drivers, good
enough?

-Marko

 

One other thing I forgot: When speed testing the board with
two Netgear GA320T Gigabit-cards, I got the fastest speed in PCI
slot 6 (netperf TCP stream). I don't quite remember the numbers,
but I think Slot 6 was about 25% faster than the slowest ones.
Likely an interrupt-issue.

Arno