From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1HjPVY-0003Vf-Kn for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 03 May 2007 00:49:21 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with SMTP id l430lU1e018168; Thu, 3 May 2007 00:47:30 GMT Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with ESMTP id l430lTgJ018163 for ; Thu, 3 May 2007 00:47:29 GMT Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1HjPTe-0005kY-Vz for gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org; Thu, 03 May 2007 02:47:22 +0200 Received: from ip68-230-67-248.ph.ph.cox.net ([68.230.67.248]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 03 May 2007 02:47:22 +0200 Received: from 1i5t5.duncan by ip68-230-67-248.ph.ph.cox.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 03 May 2007 02:47:22 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org From: Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> Subject: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Tyan Motherboards Date: Thu, 3 May 2007 00:47:12 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: ip68-230-67-248.ph.ph.cox.net User-Agent: Pan/0.128 (SR/CL: Leitmotiv: Toynbee Idea) Sender: news X-Archives-Salt: 0580f74b-a74c-4f93-bc20-0ebe161ab9cb X-Archives-Hash: 707d5051ebcb9eddbd7db987dcbbdda3 Nuitari posted Pine.LNX.4.64.0705020412370.22431@melchior.nuitari.net, excerpted below, on Wed, 02 May 2007 04:14:11 -0400: > Hi, > > I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with either the Tyan > Thunder n3600M (S2932) or the > Tyan Thunder n2000M (S3992) motherboards and, of course, gentoo amd64. > > The CPUs would be 2 2xxx opterons. No experience with those models, but Tyan is generally one of the better mobo manufacturers in terms of Linux support. I'm running a now older s2885 (dual Opteron 2xx, currently 242s, soon to be upgraded to 290s -- Tyan was very good about upgrading their BIOS to support the dual-cores when they came out as well), and have been VERY well pleased with their Linux support. Among other things, they had a pre-configured lm_sensors.conf file for my board, and it's certified for several Linux distributions. (These appeared in the shipped manual, not in the PDF on the Tyan site, so while I knew it worked with Linux from my research, the actual certifications were a surprise to me. I'm guessing that's what the blank page in the manual on the site will have in the shipped version, if they've gotten them.) Tyan also has Linux FAQ sheets both in general and for specific boards. Sometimes they have Linux drivers too, but those are usually the proprietaryware versions of stuff like RAID drivers, and I'd recommend using the native Freedomware Linux drivers instead, as it's generally possible to do so. (I'm running kernel software RAID here, rather than their BIOS/software solution, and the kernel solution is more flexible, more widely tested, and more portable should the hardware I'm on fail, all three.) One of the the reasons I decided to go with Tyan was that at the time I bought the board (back in late 2003), there were only a very few makers of dual Opteron boards, four I think listed on pricewatch.com. The two that ended up on my short list were MSI and Tyan. Where the Tyan site used standard (and therefore Linux viewable) PDFs for its manuals and some other documentation, and standard zip files to ship its BIOS and other utilities, all I could find on the MSI site were *.exe files (probably self-extracting zips, but there was no way to tell for sure without further investigation and it was enough to get me to drop them from consideration). I emailed MSI too, telling them exactly why I dropped them from consideration. Apparently, it and perhaps the emails of others had an effect, as people have reported since that MSI's downloads are now standard format as well, no more *.exe. Anyway, I made the right decision, as Gentoo/amd64 MSI users have seen more problems (as reported here) than Tyan users, which have seemed pretty happy with their purchases, from what has been reported here anyway. At the time I got mine, as I said in late 2003, Tyan's BIOS flash instructions still required MSDOS, but I wrote to them inquiring about using FreeDOS (since I didn't have an MSDOS around by that point, having dumped everything MS). They were generally helpful and supportive but couldn't verify whether FreeDOS would work for flashing or not. It did, and I've used it the couple times since when I needed/wanted to do a BIOS flash. I wrote back verifying that FreeDOS did indeed work, and suggested that they do what I think it's ASUS does, actually ship complete FreeDOS boot images for the purpose of flashing, so folks didn't have to create their own FLASH images, possibly screwing up the image by loading memory managers and the like. I've not checked to see if they have or not, but it'd be nice to see them at least mention in their Linux FAQ that some users have reported that FreeDOS works for flashing, as an alternative to using MSDOS. They could do that without testing and without liability. Anyway, if it's not in their instructions, yes, FreeDOS for BIOS flashing seems to work quite well. =8^) The single problem I did have wasn't specifically Linux related at all. Their original BIOS didn't support the memory speed adjustments that I had grown accustomed to (and apparently erroneously thought were more or less standard in moderm BIOSs), and for some time I was running generic memory that really wasn't stable at its rated PC3200 (200 MHz DDR to 400). A later BIOS update DID include memory speed limiting, and I lowered my memory the speed a single notch, to 183 MHz (DDR to 366, PC3000). My system was rock-stable after that, as a Linux-system should be. At the slower nominal speed I was in fact able to tweak the individual memory latency settings beyond factory settings to bring speed back up somewhat. It just couldn't handle the full 200/400/PC3200 nominal speeds. Later I upgraded the memory (now running 8 gig) , and the new memory didn't have the issue at all; I was able to reset the BIOS to full speed. It was thus in fact a problem with the generic memory I had been running, not of the board, but having the additional memory speed tweaking options in the earlier BIOSs would have saved me a LOT of grief. They eventually got them, but I sure could have used them earlier! As I said, however, that wasn't Linux related at all. On the Linux front, as I've seen the various issues folks have reported here, I've been VERY glad I bought Tyan, and in fact I'm likely to stay with them in the future, precisely because they DO support Linux, and quite well, at that. One thing you may wish to research a bit is the integrated video. You don't mention your intended usage. If your purpose is a no-X server, the integrated PCI-only ATI es1000 should be fine. If you will be running X, it appears the xorg-native radeon driver supports it, based on the output in my xorg log (I've a Radeon 9200 AGP, my board didn't have integrated video). I've no idea what the proprietary ATI fglx driver supports as I won't run proprietary drivers. However, it may be that you'll simply disable it and install a PCI-E card if you want 3D accelerated X. Anyway, it's likely you are simply running it as a no-X (or even headless, serial console redirect) server, in which case the integrated video should be fine. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman -- gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list