[ubuntu-uk] VIA Neheima CPU and Ubuntu Server

[J Fernyhough]

On 14 May 2013 13:26, Byte Soup <bytesoup at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi All, has anyone tried to boot a Ubuntu Server live DVD / CD for the above CPU, I managed to get knoppix to boot and I see the following details on the CPU (using "lscpu"):
>
> Architecture: i686
> CPU(s): 1
> Threads: 1
> Cores: 1
> CPU sockets: 1
> Vendor Id: CentaurHauls
> CPU family: 6
> Model: 9
> Stepping: 5
> CPU Mhz: 1002.291
>
> A bit of googling shows older release like 9.04 were ok with supporting this but not later versions. Im thinking maybe I could boot the server DVD and then go on to install it if I had the right kernel parameters?
>
> Any advice would be appreciated
>
> Thanks
>
> Mark
>
>
>
The C3 doesn't have PAE support [1]. This means the more recent
kernels (IIRC quantal and up) won't boot as their config has PAE as a
requirement. You'll either need to compile your own, or use a distro
that retains support for those older non-PAE chips.

Jonathon

[1] From http://datasheets.chipdb.org/VIA/Nehemiah/VIA%20C3%20Nehemiah%20Datasheet%20R113.pdf
, page 2-12 (24?):

"Physical Address Extensions: PAE
This function is omitted since the target market for the VIA C3
Nehemiah processor is portables and typical desktop systems. These
systems do not use 2 MB paging and have greater than 4 GB of system
memory."