CentOS Hardware support

[#1]

My home webserver was last installed with CentOS 4.7. That is because 5.2 at the time did not even support the PCI slots on my (old dual P3) motherboard so I could not get any network cards working. Also it did not support the onboard raid controller. I really don't have the patience to resolve issues like this in Linux hense I installed 4.7 which worked perfectly.
I am wanting to reinstall this server soon and completely change the disc setup. Is there any chance that 5.3 will support my hardware? I would like to have this server running identically the same as my CentOS VPS with Eukhost.
Any news on when CentOS 6 is comming, it should be this year?

[#2]

It's tempting to suggest that if 5.2 didn't support your hardware it's unlikely 5.3 will.
OTOH perhaps all that was required for 5.2 to recognise your hardware was to pass the kernel a required boot parameter (acpi=off or something similar).
Can't say for sure but I think the latter is the more likely; the kernels used by RHEL / CentOS are far from being (b)leading edge - the CentOS web site says 5.3 uses kernel 2.6.18
(Debian have precompiled 2.6.30 kernels for 486 processors - presumably support for the associated chipsets of that era are in the kernel, too).
I did see one post from a dual P3 / onboard RAID user in the CentOS forums (not necessarily the same spec as yours, of course) so there is some support there.
You could try checking the status of your PCI devices here
Or grab the 2.6.18 source (40MB)  from kernel.org and compile on your 4.7 installation using your existing kernel config. as a starting point; if your system runs on the newer kernel you know the underlying hardware support is there in 5.3.

[#3]

I tried 5.3 and it didn't work. I am not going to spend any time trying to get it to work. The capacitors on the motherboared are starting to bubble a little which from experience tells me that death is imminent.
I have convinced a friend to part with an old P4 machine that has not seen much use. He is going to drop it round through the week. Not sure of the exact specs but for the sake of buying him a few pints last night it should be worth it. Hopefully it will run 5.3 out of the box. If so then I can install Virtualmin and get it up and running in no time.
Just incase it is of interest the exact hardware specs of the existing machine are available: www.seanbranagh.ie/info