Controller Cards and various linux os's

[Burning Hill]

I am studying for my SAIR certifications, so I cobbled together a lot of spare parts together for a machine. The unfortunate thing is that the serial ports are not responsive no matter what operating system I'm using, (I've done the port test with loopback plug, checked the bios settings for irq, replaced the cables, the whole troubleshooting thing...) and the serial ports are to my conclusion are dead.

So my question is, how well does the various distributions of linux handle controller cards? I have a 2 controller cards with floppy, ide, and serial ports on them. One pci, one isa.

I have to learn inside and out about 9 different flavors of linux, and don't have the cash to pick up a new motherboard!

Can anyone help?

[mdwatts]

I would say you would have better luck with the PCI card.

Do you happen to know the brand/model etc. of the controller card?

We may be able to search Google for Linux to see if that particular card is found and hopefully some useful information on Linux compatibility.

[Burning Hill]

Well in the time being, I had to get my pci controller card to one of my customers who hasn't paid up his bill yet. (stupid serial ports being burned out by pda cradle, I told him to get a USB connection!) :mad:

The ISA card is SBN-C0307 IDE MIO CARD with a winbond w86c453p chipset.

Google search came up with nothing for that chipset, brand name, and/or linux drivers. sheesh.

Maybe if I pilfer my change jar, I'll be able to scrounge up enough cash for a basic socket 7 motherboard.:rolleyes:

Thanks for the help anyways.

[mdwatts]

Does the ISA card have jumpers or is it PnP ISA?

Either way you may need to change the resources the card uses.

cat /proc/interrupts
cat /proc/ioports

to find out what is currently being used by other devices.

Change the jumpers to whatever is available in your system or use the dos configuration utility that usually is included with PnP ISA cards to change the irq and i/o address.

[Burning Hill]

Jumpers! yay! thanks for the syntax and all the help.
I got a line on a different motherboard, I think I'll just make the machine a gNATbox.