linux hardware compatability

[timbit]

ok, last year i got my first taste of linux with mandrake on my old athlon xp system. i gave my computer to my parents and reformatted the hard drive several months ago. now i want to give it a go again with my new computer. here's the problem. i downloaded the dvd iso of mandrake 10.1. i checked the md5, and i burned it as an iso to a dvd disk. i set my computer to boot to cd-rom, and everything started fine until it tried to find my hdd. then it hangs. i thought maybe i would need some sata or raid drivers cause that's what i needed to install windows when i first put my computer together. but as i was searching for these drivers, i ran into mandrakesoft's hardware compatability list. it lists my southbridge, the via vt8237 as "incompatible." (link here) i'm guessing that this would be why the install hangs. is there anything i can do to make it work? i know that in order to make my vid card work last year i had to compile a driver for it myself.... could i do this for my southbridge? also, if it is incompatible with mandrake 10.1, is it incompatible with all linuxes (linuxes? or linii? )? or is there another one that i could use? i'm not really great with software, so if i could use another distro, a moderately user friendly would be nice.
anyways, any help with this would be appreciated.

[Dangermouse1]

You could look here

[mairving]

Who makes the motherboard? Some mfg's like Asus offer Linux drivers.

[timbit]

mairving: the mobo is the one in my sig, msi k8tm-ilsr... that would be cool, but as far as i can tell, msi does not offer linux drivers for their hardware, at least that i could find.

dangermouse: thanks for the link, but my mobo is not listed in there...

thanks for the replies guys.