New Nforce2 Linux drivers are coming soon!

[thingi]

Here's the email I received from Scott at Nvidia:-

RE: Nforce2 spdif out in Linux

Hello Stephen,
_
I'm not sure if someone else has responded to you yet. _We're very close to
releasing an updated driver package that adds SPDIF output support to the
i810 audio driver. _That should solve your SPDIF issue. _The 1394 controller
in nForce2 is a completely standard OHCI implementation. No special NVIDIA
drivers should be required. The same can be said for our USB1 and USB2
implemenations which implement standard OHCI/EHCI functionality. You should
simply need a kernel and tools which support the desired functionality under
Linux. We had previously just submitted changes to the i810 audio driver,
but as you've seen progress within the Linux community has been slow.
Because of that, we've gone ahead and done the SPDIF implementation directly
and will be releasing it very soon.
_
Kindest Regards,
Scott Pritchett

This is GREAT news!!!!!! Shame about the firewire issue because there is a problem with the Nforce2 firewire controller, Hopefully I should have some more news about that soon.

All I can say is Well Done Nvidia & Well Done Scott! I only sent the mail yesterday so the reply was very quick indeed.

Thingi

[Fabtax]

Pretty good news.

But i hope it will fix the mic problem for nforce2 too coz its not working on that actual release :(

Unfortunely i had no response to nvidia from this problem.

[Cigarman]

Hey good deal I've been stressing over this for weeks. :angel:

Always glad to know that the $150 I spend on my outboard DAC hasnt gone to waste!

[pr0c]

I cannot wait myself :D

I absolutely love Nvidia for their linux support, they truley are a gem to the linux community.

[suexec]

I just wish that nVidia would provide specs on the nForce/2 chipsets so that the linux agpgart maintainer can provide support for the nForce/2 agp. Yes, I am not using a nVidia video card, and I will not buy one just so I can use the nvagp integrated into the nVidia graphics driver. I would prefer to have choice and replace my nForce2 motherboard with a Via based board. I had taken for granted that something like motherboard resources would be made public. I expected binary drivers for their video cards, but not for the motherboard.

[Aquarium]

Hi,

I had submitted a patch (over a month ago) to the ohci1394 module in the linux kernel, so that it will support the nVidia nForce2 boards too. I see that it has been accepted and included from 2.4.21_pre7 kernel (pre)version onwards. Install it and enjoy.

In case you are using the 2.5.* development kernels, I am attaching the relevant patch file "nvnforce2.diff.txt" which was generated against the latest 2.5.67, but should work with any reasonably uptodate version. Just save it in your /usr/src/linux-2.5.67 (or whatever) directory, and do (in that dir):

patch -p1 < nvnforce2.diff.txt

now compile + install the kernel and modules as usual. Hope this helps.

On a related note: Has anyone been able to get the cpu-health sensors detected on the nForce2 SMBus using the i2c-nforce2 module availbale from lm_sensors CVS ? Any info is appreciated!

By the way, I am using a Shuttle SN41G2 system(if that helps). The kernel gives an oops when I modprobe it87 , which seems to be the sensor chip(it8712F/it8705F not sure) in this board. When I force the it87 module to not use i2c-isa; but use i2c-nforce2 alone (with bus1 and address 0x2d forced), it does not seem to give an oops, but then there are no detected sensors either. Otherwise all the i2c modules (i2c-nforce2, i2c-proc, i2c-dev, i2c-isa, i2c-core) load properly.

Thanks,
~Nandu Santhi