[gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Nicola Degl'Innocenti]

Hi!
I would like to buy a new pc, but since I use linux more than windows (that i 
use only for gaming), I am interested in hardware compatibility with linux. 

I'm planing to buy a core 2 Duo platform with a nvidia 8800 GT, but i am very 
confused about the motherboard. The cheapest shop vendor only have asus 
motherboard so i don't have much choice. 
- Asus P5E X38 DDR2 for 189 €
- Asus P5K/pro iP35 for 114 €  	  
- Asus P5N32-E/SLI 680i for 199€
- Asus P5N-T dlx 780i 232€ 

Someone have one of those cards or know a good site with information about 
linux compatibility for those cards? 

The SLI capability is not important as having ethernet or sound supported on 
linux.

Thank a lot.

Nicola
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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Galevsky]

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On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:43 PM, Nicola Degl'Innocenti
<neodarklight@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi!
>  I would like to buy a new pc, but since I use linux more than windows (that i
>  use only for gaming), I am interested in hardware compatibility with linux.
>
>  I'm planing to buy a core 2 Duo platform with a nvidia 8800 GT, but i am very
>  confused about the motherboard. The cheapest shop vendor only have asus
>  motherboard so i don't have much choice.
>  - Asus P5E X38 DDR2 for 189 €
>  - Asus P5K/pro iP35 for 114 €
>  - Asus P5N32-E/SLI 680i for 199€
>  - Asus P5N-T dlx 780i 232€
>
>  Someone have one of those cards or know a good site with information about
>  linux compatibility for those cards?
>

I am running a Core 2 Duo E6750 mounted on a P5K + PNY 8800 GTS 640Mo
with no problem. It just requires a 2.6.23 kernel with Jmicron
support.

Gal'
éí¢‹¬z¹b²Û z{h¢Šà™¨¥Šx%ŠË

Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Neil Walker]

Nicola Degl'Innocenti wrote:
> Hi!
> I would like to buy a new pc, but since I use linux more than windows (that i 
> use only for gaming), I am interested in hardware compatibility with linux. 
>
> I'm planing to buy a core 2 Duo platform with a nvidia 8800 GT, but i am very 
> confused about the motherboard. The cheapest shop vendor only have asus 
> motherboard so i don't have much choice. 
> - Asus P5E X38 DDR2 for 189 €
> - Asus P5K/pro iP35 for 114 €  	  
> - Asus P5N32-E/SLI 680i for 199€
> - Asus P5N-T dlx 780i 232€ 
>
> Someone have one of those cards or know a good site with information about 
> linux compatibility for those cards? 
>   

I've never had a problem with Asus motherboards and Linux - in fact, 
they are my preferred manufacturer.  My last Asus board was  an M3A  for 
an AMD Phenom CPU which is irrelevant to your case, unfortunately. 
However, my last two build have been using Intel Q6600 CPUs (Core 2 
quad) using J&W motherboards with the Intel  P35  chipset  so I can say 
that  chipset  works absolutely fine with Linux. :)

I believe any of those boards you list should be fine but the P5K/Pro 
iP35 seems to offer the best value for money.


Be lucky,

Neil



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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 25 March 2008, Nicola Degl'Innocenti wrote:
> Hi!
> I would like to buy a new pc, but since I use linux more than windows
> (that i use only for gaming), I am interested in hardware
> compatibility with linux.
>
> I'm planing to buy a core 2 Duo platform with a nvidia 8800 GT,

Stay away from NVidia. Good performing cards, but their Linux support is 
atrocious (and that's being kind to them)

ATI are not much better but at least they make something of an effort to 
publish some specs.

Intell cards are the best supported and the worst performing I'm afraid

> but i 
> am very confused about the motherboard. The cheapest shop vendor only
> have asus motherboard so i don't have much choice.
> - Asus P5E X38 DDR2 for 189 €
> - Asus P5K/pro iP35 for 114 €
> - Asus P5N32-E/SLI 680i for 199€
> - Asus P5N-T dlx 780i 232€

Look further afield. Don't limit yourself to just one shop based on 
price. The price difference between motherboards isn't that great when 
compared to the cost of an entire box, and the wrong decision can be 
very painful in the future

> Someone have one of those cards or know a good site with information
> about linux compatibility for those cards?
>
> The SLI capability is not important as having ethernet or sound
> supported on linux.

Ethernet is not a problem now and has not been for a very long time. 
Sound is mostly similar.

Video cards is the big sticking point


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Galevsky]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
>  Video cards is the big sticking point

For sure. But I guess that he wants to satellite his GC with the last
Windows games, so I would recommend a 8800. And his NVIDIA wont hurt
for a common desktop usage.

As for the performances, could you tell me if there is a gap between
nv and the proprietary driver ? I Never tried the later.

Gal'
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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 25 March 2008, Galevsky wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Alan McKinnon
> <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote: <snip>
>
> >  Video cards is the big sticking point
>
> For sure. But I guess that he wants to satellite his GC with the last
> Windows games, so I would recommend a 8800. And his NVIDIA wont hurt
> for a common desktop usage.
>
> As for the performances, could you tell me if there is a gap between
> nv and the proprietary driver ? I Never tried the later.

I'll let someone more current answer that - I haven't done head to head 
comparisons on nvidia for ages. Last I heard, nv was still way behind 
in terms of features supported, but that can change quite quickly.

Anyone else got current info on this? It's a question I'm sure many folk 
would like an answer on



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Albert Hopkins]

On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 15:18 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > As for the performances, could you tell me if there is a gap between
> > nv and the proprietary driver ? I Never tried the later.
> 
> I'll let someone more current answer that - I haven't done head to
> head 
> comparisons on nvidia for ages. Last I heard, nv was still way behind 
> in terms of features supported, but that can change quite quickly.
> 
> Anyone else got current info on this? It's a question I'm sure many
> folk 
> would like an answer on

The nv driver has *no* 3D acceleration and limited 2D acceleration due
to nVidia's refusal to release the specs needed to create a decent OSS
driver.

You can try the nouveau* drivers but they're still experimental.


* http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/

-a
 


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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Galevsky]

Tank you.

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 2:53 PM, Albert Hopkins <marduk@letterboxes.org> wrote:
>  On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 15:18 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

>  The nv driver has *no* 3D acceleration and limited 2D acceleration due
>  to nVidia's refusal to release the specs needed to create a decent OSS
>  driver.
>
>  You can try the nouveau* drivers but they're still experimental.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Dienstag, 25. März 2008, Albert Hopkins wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 15:18 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > As for the performances, could you tell me if there is a gap between
> > > nv and the proprietary driver ? I Never tried the later.
> >
> > I'll let someone more current answer that - I haven't done head to
> > head
> > comparisons on nvidia for ages. Last I heard, nv was still way behind
> > in terms of features supported, but that can change quite quickly.
> >
> > Anyone else got current info on this? It's a question I'm sure many
> > folk
> > would like an answer on
>
> The nv driver has *no* 3D acceleration and limited 2D acceleration due
> to nVidia's refusal to release the specs needed to create a decent OSS
> driver.

since the nv driver is written by nvidia, who needs specs?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[darren kirby]

quoth the Volker Armin Hemmann:

> > The nv driver has *no* 3D acceleration and limited 2D acceleration due
> > to nVidia's refusal to release the specs needed to create a decent OSS
> > driver.
>
> since the nv driver is written by nvidia, who needs specs?

I thought the Xorg folks wrote the nv driver?

-d
-- 
darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972
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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Albert Hopkins]

On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 10:48 -0600, darren kirby wrote:
> I thought the Xorg folks wrote the nv driver?

They do, but the nv driver code was written by someone paid by nVidia
and hasn't really had any significant work done on it in years.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Albert Hopkins]

On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 17:08 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > The nv driver has *no* 3D acceleration and limited 2D acceleration
> due
> > to nVidia's refusal to release the specs needed to create a decent
> OSS
> > driver.
> 
> since the nv driver is written by nvidia, who needs specs?

The nv driver is crippleware and, without efforts like nouveau, there is
no *real* OSS driver that can fully take advantage of the hardware
without the specs.

-a


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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Dienstag, 25. März 2008, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Tuesday 25 March 2008, Nicola Degl'Innocenti wrote:
> > Hi!
> > I would like to buy a new pc, but since I use linux more than windows
> > (that i use only for gaming), I am interested in hardware
> > compatibility with linux.
> >
> > I'm planing to buy a core 2 Duo platform with a nvidia 8800 GT,
>
> Stay away from NVidia. Good performing cards, but their Linux support is
> atrocious (and that's being kind to them)

he is talking about mobos not graphic cards. And nvidia-mobos are fine.

And the support of their graphic cards is ok too. If you don't like their 
binary driver, you can always use the nv driver.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[ionut cucu]

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:17:17 +0200
Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
> Stay away from NVidia. Good performing cards, but their Linux support
> is atrocious (and that's being kind to them)
> 
> ATI are not much better but at least they make something of an effort
> to publish some specs.
> 
> Intell cards are the best supported and the worst performing I'm
> afraid
I'm afraid I must step in here a little:
never had I had any trouble with 3d accel with my small 6200TC, "on
contraire": updateing the drivers just got the small rat faster and
faster. There were some trouble with mm kernel, but one shouldn't get
any hopes with 3d and mm. And I'm talking about a cheap video-card here
that can play 3d games in hosted os. 
ATI on the other hand with all it's specs released, has not convinced
me. I had a lot more trouble with it as an experienced gentooer than I
had with nvidia as a newbe. ATI-s floss drivers don't support all
chips, the official ones have trouble supporting new APIs, cedega
issues and so on and so forth. Even so I think you can get the job done
but with much more time/effort consumed than one would expect. 

> > but i 
> > am very confused about the motherboard. The cheapest shop vendor
> > only have asus motherboard so i don't have much choice.
> > - Asus P5E X38 DDR2 for 189 €
> > - Asus P5K/pro iP35 for 114 €
> > - Asus P5N32-E/SLI 680i for 199€
> > - Asus P5N-T dlx 780i 232€
I to am a proud owner of and Asus MB, changed it twice wile in
warranty, because the ethernet burned out and some chip-fan decided to
take a vacation, but as for compatibility/performance i have only good
words for it
> Look further afield. Don't limit yourself to just one shop based on 
> price. The price difference between motherboards isn't that great
> when compared to the cost of an entire box, and the wrong decision
> can be very painful in the future
Aint all that bad. My brother's MSI botherbord with highly unstable
cooling system and a burned USB hub(that was a cool party) still gets
him 8 days uptime
> > Someone have one of those cards or know a good site with information
> > about linux compatibility for those cards?
Your google-fu will help you here. The force is strong within you
> > The SLI capability is not important as having ethernet or sound
> > supported on linux.
Should you follow the path of the manual you'll find interesting links
about sound cards support on linux, as for ethernet, if you dan;t have
drivers from linux you can use the windows ones(this is true for
ethernet to right?)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 26 March 2008, ionut cucu wrote:
> > > The SLI capability is not important as having ethernet or sound
> > > supported on linux.
>
> Should you follow the path of the manual you'll find interesting
> links about sound cards support on linux, as for ethernet, if you
> dan;t have drivers from linux you can use the windows ones(this is
> true for ethernet to right?)

I can't remember a single ethernet device in the last several years that 
wasn't fully supported and JustWorked(tm) straight out the box on any 
old arb Linux system. Sometimes I had hassles with FibreChannel and 
related technologies while it was relatively new, but a quick 
comparison with the same hardware running RedHat sorted that out in a 
jiffy. Usually I have stuff that genuinely just worked while the 
windows colleagues battled like mad for weeks to find suitable 
drivers ;-)

The thing you are referring to is ndiswrapper, which is useful for 
wireless devices. I dunno if it copes with ethernet too, but seeing as 
I know of no case in the world where it was necessary it's a bit of a 
moot point

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alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:09:19 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> I can't remember a single ethernet device in the last several years
> that wasn't fully supported and JustWorked(tm) straight out the box on
> any old arb Linux system. 

When I bought my Asus P5B-E board last year, the drivers for the Attansic
L1 gigabit NIC hadn't made it into the kernel and no live CD would enable
it. I ended up putting a spare PCI NIC in to install Gentoo, then
patching the kernel to enable the on-board one.

It appeared in the next kernel release, so is not problem now, but that
was less than a year ago.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will
clean them?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[ionut cucu]

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:45:21 +0000
Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:09:19 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> 
> > I can't remember a single ethernet device in the last several years
> > that wasn't fully supported and JustWorked(tm) straight out the box
> > on any old arb Linux system. 
> 
> When I bought my Asus P5B-E board last year, the drivers for the
> Attansic L1 gigabit NIC hadn't made it into the kernel and no live CD
> would enable it. I ended up putting a spare PCI NIC in to install
> Gentoo, then patching the kernel to enable the on-board one.
> 
> It appeared in the next kernel release, so is not problem now, but
> that was less than a year ago.
Something similar to that I was referring myself: less than a year ago
some cheap realtek model was not kernel supported. I was lucky though:
only after  2 weeks it got in to the mm kernel(or was it git?)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Joseph]

On 03/24/08 23:43, Nicola Degl'Innocenti wrote:
[snip]
>Someone have one of those cards or know a good site with information about 
>linux compatibility for those cards? 
>
>The SLI capability is not important as having ethernet or sound supported on 
>linux.

Another option/consideration would be to look motherboards that are compatible with: 
http://www.coreboot.org/Welcome_to_coreboot

You have an option of putting Linux into the BIOS for faster booting. 

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Re: [gentoo-user] Linux & Motherboard

[Nicola Degl'Innocenti]

Thanks for the reply.
I love linux, his power and flexibility, but i don't think buying a p3 or 
athon X2 64 only to have linux on Bios. I didn't know that project but it 
seem quite interesting. I hope some major motherboard builders seriusly 
invest on the project and bring it to the world of the home computers. It 
would be pretty interesting to see on market linux bios and Ami or other 
vendors bios . 
So for my question I thanks again for the reply. If there are no problems with 
nvidia or intel mobo (but this is true for all the nvidia and intel mobo? 
There are no problem with other chipset integrated on the motherboard?), then 
I need to focus on performance (SLI or future upgrade) and princing.

Thank you again.

Nicola 

Ps
I think my choice is restricted only at:
P5N32-E
P5K/pro



> On 03/24/08 23:43, Nicola Degl'Innocenti wrote:
> [snip]
>
> >Someone have one of those cards or know a good site with information about
> >linux compatibility for those cards?
> >
> >The SLI capability is not important as having ethernet or sound supported
> > on linux.
>
> Another option/consideration would be to look motherboards that are
> compatible with: http://www.coreboot.org/Welcome_to_coreboot
>
> You have an option of putting Linux into the BIOS for faster booting.
>
> --
> #Joseph
> GPG KeyID: ED0E1FB7


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