I've managed install Scientific Linux 5 on the Abit AB9 Pro. My previous
attempts with CentOS5 and SL5 had failed because the ata_piix driver in
the installer doesn't work with this board. For the benefit of others
here is how I did it,
I upgraded the BIOS from 1.6. to 1.8. Abit hides the 1.8 BIOS on their
website, if you go to the AB9 Pro page it only lists BIOS versions up to
1.6 which came out in Dec 2006, to get the 1.8 BIOS, which came out June
2007, you have to click on the Browse FTP Site button. On the FTP site
there is a directory for the AB9, in that directory you will find the 1.8
BIOS.
After installing the new BIOS I still had the problem with ata_piix. I
was able to get around the problem by enabling AHCI instead of IDE mode
on the Intel SATA controllers. When AHCI is enabled it doesn't use
ata_piix and the installer works. My attempts with the 1.6 BIOS didn't
work with any configuration, with 1.8 AHCI works.
After doing the install you will have to build a kernel. RHEL5/CentOS5/
SL5 use a 2.6.18 kernel which is useless on Core2 motherboards. The 965
chipset lacks Ethernet MACs (what was Intel thinking?) so the Core2
motherboards require a third party MAC. The common MACs are Realtek
RTL8111/8168B or the Atlansic. The AB9 Pro uses the Realtek MACs. The
Realtek Ethernet chips require a 2.6.19 or better kernel. Redhat made the
inexplicable decision to use 2.6.18 in RHEL 5 even though the Core2 had
been out for 6 months prior to the release of RHEL 5, and 2.6.19 has been
available since Nov 2006, five months before they release RHEL 5. They
didn't even bother to back port the Realtek drivers. I built a 2.6.21.5
kernel which fully supports the Realtek MACs.
Even with 2.6.21.5 lmsensors still doesn't work. I built the abituguru
module but it doesn't work for this board.
The thing that is working now, after the BIOS upgrade, is the CPU
frequencies in scaling_available_frequencies. With the earlier BIOS the
frequencies were reported as 1000000 800000 600000 if the CPU wasn't
running at the speced frequency. Abit slightly overclocks the CPU unless
you explicitly set the clock down to the correct rate so the frequencies
were always reported wrong if you ran with the BIOS defaults or if you
explicitly overclocked the CPU. With the 1.8 BIOS the frequencies are
reported correctly.
The one thing that I haven't tried with the new BIOS is the ondemand
speed governor. With the 1.6 BIOS the system would crash with anything
but the Performance governor.
I'm selecting the Performance governor in /etc/rc.local. I've been
running FC6 64 that way since last November. The system has been
completely stable with the Performance governor.
Even though the new BIOS is a little better I recommend that this board
be avoided at all costs. It still has serious incompatibilities which I
suspect will never be fixed.
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