Just for the record, I have very little trouble with my Athlon + VIA
chipset system.  (There are some quirks with USB, and the built-in
auvia(4) audio doesn't record too well---but my old PII 233 with Ensoniq
never recorded too well, either; (^&.)

It may be that if I upgraded to 1.5.1, I would curse VIA's IDE, too.  But
under 1.5, _my_ system hums along pretty well.  (I don't stress it a whole
lot, but uptimes tend to be bounded by things like thunderstorms, not
reliability.)

It serves as my personal workstation, with various duties (printing,
compiling, surfing the web, ssh (mostly outbound), a few games, X,
SETI@Home, ...).


Since I'm posting on the topic, and the question is on my mind, I'll ask:

_Are_ the VIA chipset problems exacerbated under 1.5.1?  Or, can I
reasonably expect to remain as pleased with my VIA/Athlon system under
1.5.1 as I am under 1.5?  It seems that the displeasure with VIA has
mounted of late, but my hazy impression is that the people doing the
complaining are more prone to running -current or the 1.5.1_ALPHA or _BETA
releases.  On the other hand, no one speaks of reverting to 1.5 to solve
their problems...

If need be, I might be able to become a guinea pig on this count in a bit,
but it would be nice if someone can already answer that question for
me.  (^&


Both as a comment that ``It works nicely under 1.5'' and to help anyone
able & willing to tell me what I can expect uner 1.5.1, here's part of my
dmesg:

 /~~~ dmesg

 [...]
pchb0: VIA Technologies product 0x0305 (rev. 0x02)
ppb0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0: VIA Technologies product 0x8305 (rev. 0x00)
pci1 at ppb0 bus 1
pci1: i/o space, memory space enabled
pcib0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0
pcib0: VIA Technologies VT82C686A (Apollo KX133) PCI-ISA Bridge (rev. 0x22)
pciide0 at pci0 dev 7 function 1: VIA Tech VT82C586A IDE Controller (rev. 0x10)
pciide0: bus-master DMA support present
pciide0: primary channel configured to compatibility mode
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <Maxtor 52049H4>
wd0: drive supports 16-sector pio transfers, lba addressing
wd0: 19541 MB, 16383 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 40020624 sectors
wd0: 32-bit data port
wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 5
 [...]

 \___ dmesg

(If it would help, I may be able to offer to run tests on this over the
summer.  If this would be a big help in working around VIA quirks, let me
know soon---otherwise, I may crawl into isolation from the 'net for a
couple of months after I move.)


  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about." --rauch@eecs.ukans.edu