Question: Status of VIA chipsets and 2.2 kernels

[Robert Cohen]

What with all the various problem reports flying around for via
chipsets, Ive lost track of the state of play as regards via
northbridges and south bridges.
I am thinking of buying a machine with a via chipset and I wan't to know
how stable it is likely to be with Linux.
I would appreciate it if someone who know's whats going on can give a
report on the state of play
as regards to all the problems and their current status with 2.2 kernels
(and 2.4 if their feeling energetic).

Possible machine are:
 a P3 machine with a ASUS CUV4X-E motherboard which uses the apollo pro
694X northbridge and a 686B southbridge.

An athlon machine with an ASUS A7V motherboard which uses a KT133
(VT8363) northbridge and a 686A southbridge.

An athlon machine with an ASUS A7V133 motherboard which uses a KT133A
(VT8363A) northbridge and a 686B southbridge.

Problems Ive been hearing about include DMA disk transfers between
channels. Some reports say these only occur with Western digital disks.
The 2 athlon boards listed include an onboard promise IDE controller. So
I should be OK if I use this for disks, right?

Any other problems I should know about?

--
Robert Cohen
Unix Support
TLTSU
Australian National University
Ph: 612 58389