any linux users with core 2 duo

[Vad3r]

I have the funds for a new build, I have everything picked out, just the motherboard has me stuck.
While researching, you find problems people have, but the ones that don't have any issues don't post issues, because it all works.
Today, I use ubuntu linux as my primary O/S, and started with Mandrake 9 I think it was 3-4 years ago. I really want to keep ubuntu as my primary O/S.
I know linux and cutting edge hardware don't always go hand in hand, but there must be a motherboard where most things work correctly. C2D has been out a while now.
All m/b's come with usb 2.0 now days, firewire would be an added bonus for me (a video cam with FW that I'd like to start useing).
If onboard sound doesn't work, I can live with that, I'll get a sound card. Hoping network will work.
Anyhow, I posted here, as I will most likely find linux users with a c2d system, hope to find someone list a board where it all (or most) just works.

 

[drag]

Get a Intel board with 945G chipset.

Most everything should work just fine. The only troubles people seem to have with these things is that sometimes companies add extra IDE controller that Linux may have trouble recognizing if it's configured in the BIOS in a certain way. This can cause problems during installation because the Linux install cdrom may be able to recognize the cdrom drive it's booting off of.

But that's a pretty small issue actually.

The nice thing about these motherboards is that they are well supported, the onboard graphics has 2d/3d graphics supported out of the box on modern Linux distros, and if you get a motherboard that supports something like 'Intel's storage matrix' or somesuch thing it supports AHCI.

AHCI is nice because if you want to use the board as a server eventually you can get special features like hotswapping drives and better power management. You wouldn't use Intel's raid features, though. You'd use software raid (it's better).

It's usually about 10-20 dollars more for boards taht support ACHI then those that don't.

Audio on them are well supported. 7.1, and you can typically get add-on boards that support digital audio I/O.

For TV out or DVI setups you can even get add on boards called ADD2 boards that plug into the PCIe x16 port and are more or less just adaptors for the onboard intel graphics. But this is a fairly unusual thing to do.

The major downside to the onboard intel graphics is that for widescreen resolutions you have to use 915resolution hack.


The newer board fthen that is the G965 and Q965 chipsets. These have onboard graphics. The G965 board supports the GMA X3000 graphics which is slightly faster then the stuff that comes with the 945g and supports modern hardware acceleration like hardware T&L and shading languages. (the Q965 doesn't support these hardware features, only the G965)

These boards should have very good support, but they are newer so your more likely to run into odd issues during install time and such. I expect all the next major releases of distributions will have good support. Either way the worst thing that would happen is that you'd have to compile your own kernel and update to the latest Alsa release, depending on the specific boards.

Like the 945g these have optional ACHI support, which (again) is desirable if you'd like to turn it into a server eventually.

Plus they support more ram. Typical 945g boards support up to 4gigs and the typical G965 will support 8gigs.

The major problem with G/Q965 stuff is that they have a hard time support widescreen resolutions and the 915resolution hack may not work. You'd have to wait for updated X drivers that support 'modesetting'. Nowadays X drivers are released seperately from X server releases (with some issues..), but I expect all this stuff to be supported well by X.org 7.3 so that it will make 915resolution obsolete for most people.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[Alone]

Gigabyte 965P-S3 with a SATA HD, no issues.

 

[Brazen]

The Gigabyte 965 board is supposed to be awesome. I have an Intel DG965WH and unfortunately Dapper will not install on it. As fyleow said, Feisty won't either for the same reason, but there is supposed to be a patch for Fiesty to fix this.

All in all, I would say stay away from Intel boards. I only have this one because I got it as a cheap bundle.

 

[xtknight]

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

It won't work until kernel 2.6.18 though (JMicron IDE and Marvell Ethernet).

Ubuntu Feisty, due for release April 19th, contains kernel 2.6.20 at the moment and it works great.

 

[Alone]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

It won't work until kernel 2.6.18 though (JMicron IDE and Marvell Ethernet).

Ubuntu Feisty, due for release April 19th, contains kernel 2.6.20 at the moment and it works great.

Which kernel did Edgy ship with, do you know?

EDIT: Congrats on lifer count.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Alone

Originally posted by: xtknight
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

It won't work until kernel 2.6.18 though (JMicron IDE and Marvell Ethernet).

Ubuntu Feisty, due for release April 19th, contains kernel 2.6.20 at the moment and it works great.

Which kernel did Edgy ship with, do you know?

EDIT: Congrats on lifer count.

Not sure what it ships with, but the current kernel in the Edgy branch is 2.6.17-11. It does not support JMicron JMB36x or the Marvell 88E8053. The S3 board has a Marvell 88E8056 which may explain why it worked for you. The DS3 sports a 88E8053 (11ab:4364) and this wasn't autodetected for me. What I did though was install Dapper because Edgy didn't detect the SATA ports on my Intel ICH8 chipset. Dapper did not support my ethernet although it's possible Edgy does.

Since some people had no trouble at all, I think the problems can be explained by poor ACPI/IRQ coding in the BIOS. What's very interesting is that Linux needs drivers for the JMicron and Windows doesn't (well Windows just uses an ide generic driver). "all-generic-ide" on the kernel command line worked for some, but not others such as myself.

Originally posted by: fyleow

Originally posted by: xtknight
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

It won't work until kernel 2.6.18 though (JMicron IDE and Marvell Ethernet).

Ubuntu Feisty, due for release April 19th, contains kernel 2.6.20 at the moment and it works great.

I'm using a DS3 and Feisty Beta did not install correctly with an IDE DVD. I had to use an external USB DVD drive to do the installation. After updates I could enable the Jmicron again and use my IDE DVD though. What was the issue with Marvell? I've used this motherboard with dapper, edgy, and feisty and didn't experience any lan issues.

Ah, with Feisty? It worked for me but I use a Promise IDE controller now because the JMicron is **** imho. My particular Marvell network chipset did not work with Dapper (don't think it would with Edgy either).

 

[xfalconx2]

Are any of you running a 64-bit distro and still getting it to work fine? When the prices drop for C2Ds, I'm going to be getting one and I want to run 64-bit so I can run F@H's SMP client. I have the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 already.

 

[xtknight]

64 worked fine for me but I use 32 because of macrofusion in 32bit mode on the Core 2.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[drag]

On my 945g motherboard it has the ITE ATA "raid" controller as a second IDE controller.

I had issues with it being supported by older kernels. I think that last time I tried to install it wasn't recongnized, but fiddling around in the bios for a minute or so fixed that.

This stuff is why I say stick with the 945g boards for now if you don't have a pressing need for the GMA X3000 onboard video card. (I am willing to trade! I want the X3000 😛 )

There may be a slight performance advantage the 965 over the 945, but it's not more then a couple percent.


As for the Marvell network chipset there are 2 major variations that require different drivers.

There is the onboard Marvell chipset that uses the PCI buss, and then there is the Marvell onboard chipset that used the PCI Express bus. They are different enough that it's entirely possible that one is supported with a paticular version of Linux better then the other one.

The Intel gigabit ethernet is more desirable anyways.

That's why it's a kinda good idea to stick with Intel brand motherboards (and maybe also Asus) if you want something to be as trouble free as possible. They are less likely to add odd things and they have much better documentation on what is on the hardware.

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/index.htm

 

[Vad3r]

thanks all,

So it seems many/all would suggest Intel board with 945G chipset. And the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 comes highly recommended.
As this is a new build, I should also get a sata DVD drive for proper detection for installing linux.

 

[lambchops511]

get an nvidia card if u want AIGLX which of course u want

i have a ati card x1400 ... and ive been waiting for months for the new driver that supports it . i dont expect it till at least a year later................