Linux on Eurone EM5598SG motherboard?

[mviland]

I am considering buying a Eurone 5598SG motherboard - It uses a SIS 530 chipset and has sound and AGP video built in. Does anyone know if I can run Linux on this board?
Also is this a good (cheap) board in general?
-Thanks

[Peter M]

Hi!

The PC-Chips M598 (aka Eurone or whatever) is a bit too new to have its onboard units well supported by Linux.

The sound chip is a C-Media 8338 PCI device, requiring proprietary support just like any other PCI sound chip.

The graphics unit is integrated into the SiS 530 chipset. While it is strikingly similar to the standalone 6326AGP, it IDs as a 6306, which the XFree SiS drivers do not accept as theirs yet.

The better choice for a cheap and well-supported Linux box would be the older M590 board. It has the XFree supported 6326AGP separate graphics chip onboard, and the C-Media 8330 PnP ISA sound device, which is also well supported.

But note: While being advertized as PC100, the M590 has a maximum true bus speed of 90 MHz. Choices are 60, 66, 75, 83, and "100" (90 actually). Knowing that, the best choice of processor is one that runs on 83 MHz bus, like an AMD K6-2/333 meant for 95x3.5 and run at 83x4.0, or a Cyrix MII-333 "83 MHz 3.0x".

(The M598 as it sits here on my test bench runs true 100 MHz and also offers a 95 MHz setting.)

Regards, Peter

[mviland]

Cool! Thanks for the information. Does this mean that Linux - or Xfree86 is not likely to run on this board at all, or just that it wont take full advantage of the boards capabilities? Also, is it likely that the 6306 chip will be supported in the future?

Thanks!

[Peter M]

Hi!

As I wrote, the 6306 is very similar to the standalone 6326AGP, so that Linux support shouldn't be too far away.

PCI sound devices are more difficult to handle, as they all have unique programming interfaces. This is unlike ISA or ISA PnP sound devices, which were all somewhat SB16 or WSS compatible in hardware.

Bottom line: If you want a well-supported all-in-one to work with now, you want the M590.

Regards, Peter