Is there anything I need to know about choosing a motherboard for Linux?

[krotchy]

I am planning on building 2 computers for running software defined radio applications in linux, and since this is entirely processor limited we wanted to go with some higher end processors and get bang for the buck by building them. Currently all of our SDR work is compiled and working in Fedora 6 so we are likely to stick to that unless someone can give me a reason not to.

When it comes to building windows machines I tend to enjoy using the Asus P5B Deluxe/Wifi since its stable and easy to configure. However I am not sure if this is the way to go in Fedora Core 6 x64.

Just so you know I have built 2 servers and about 15 computers in the last year, so I am pretty up to date with builds, but all of these have been XP/Vista machines, I just dont know much about linux.

 

[Cogman]

Linux is fairly driver friendly (now), sometimes brand new motherboards/hardware arn't as well supported as the older stuff. If you want to make sure that it will work, look up each different componet with linux tagged on the end of the search query. That should give you a rough Idea of how well it works. (you might have to dig up the specific chips used to find out if they work)

The P5B has been out for a while now and is intel chipset based, so I think that the compatibility should be fairly seamless (Intel and linux usually work fairly well together). Nvidia as well is pretty linux friendly. ATI is not linux friendly.... Hope this helps

 

[krotchy]

Yeah, that is pretty much all I needed to know. I have a pretty good idea of whats going in this build, probably going with

P5B-Deluxe or other P5B board (probably wont be doing wifi)
Intel Q6600
Enermax Liberty 400W Power Supply
Gigabyte Passive 7600GT
Lian-Li PC7A/B+2 (2 Identical Machines, one silver one black)
NEC 18x DVD Burner (one Silver, one black)
Seagate Barracuda ES 250GB 16 MB Cache
Wintec Ampo 2x2GB DDR2-800 Ram
Dell 2407 Monitor

Looks like it'll be about 4000 total for both including monitor, keyboard and mouse. I already knew that NVidia was the way to go with linux, and since there arent Linux 8600 drivers yet and this machine isnt going to be doing much more than intensive python/C++ code its not worth hitting an 8 series. I really just wanted to make sure motherboard drivers would be ok, since the mobo tends to be the death point with some operating systems.

 

[drag]

If you want maximum ease of use then I suggest going with Intel 945g-based motherboards.

The onboard video on those things is adiquate for basic games (up to about Wolfenstien-based games) and 3D desktop support (beryl, compiz, et al).

The nice thing about Intel onboard is that they are supported by open source drivers. That way you can avoid most the headaches associated with dealing with propriatory drivers.

For my personal desktop I use a Asus P5LD2-VM motherboard. I like it because even though it's running a Pentium-D 930 proccessor I can keep it very cool and quiet with my massive Scythe Ninja heatsink, a duct made out of tape and a empty dr.pepper box, and a single 800rpm 120mm fan in the back. (along with the 120mm fan in the PSU.)

The only major downsides are that there is no DVI out unless you get a ADD2 add-on card, and that it's not fast enough for newer games. There is also a problem with widescreen resolutions were you need to use 915resolution hack to get non-standard resolutions.

 

[krotchy]

Thanks for the suggestion drag, but I definitely need DVI and wide screen to use the Dell 2407. Also the 945 doesnt support the quad cores, so thats kinda 3 strokes and it is out. Do you see any problems with a P5B-E, Deluxe or Premium with a 7600GT drag? Again I am looking for ease of use, I have no intentions of doing any digging in the kernal or drivers.

 

[drag]

Nope don't see anything wrong with that setup at all. Should be very fast.

Probably want to watch which sata ports you use, though. Looks like they have Jmicron-based SATA ports mixed in with the Intel ICH8 (I think) ports. So that _may_ cause problems. The Intel stuff is pretty well supported. I know that people have issues with some versions of Linux and booting off of some types of Jmicron PATA controllers. I have no idea about their SATA stuff.

Also probably you'd want to get a SATA DVD burner, again to avoid any PATA issues.

But all of this is not certain because I don't own the things personally. Once the OS is installed then everything should be just great.

Personally I just don't like having to deal with Nvidia drivers issues if I don't need the high end 3d acceleration. I prefer open source drivers whenever I can. There is a corrisponding G965 version of this chipset with onboard Intel graphics, but I don't think that the open drivers will be 100% (same issues I described with the 945g) until X.org 7.3 comes out. I'd like to have one right now, but you know it's not something that I can realy recommend right now given the unknowns.

 

[krotchy]

Wow the PATA controller is causing issues with that board? I always thought SATA DVD drives were the problematic ones.

 

[drag]

Intel SATA has good support in Linux.

The Jmicron stuff? Not so much.

And I don't know if that is absolutely true. Other people who have a *965 chipsets have written such. Also I went to the Asus website and they talk about jmicron SATA/PATA, so I assume that they mean that sata is a mixture of the onboard intel and the onboard jmicron and that PATA is all jmicron. So you want to make sure to use the onboard Intel (which is SATA-only) for any booting stuff.

Otherwise people have used USB-based drives to install Linux on jmicron-pata-using motherboard. Also if you want to you can get something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812189122 for a USB adapter if you don't want to go out and buy a new drive.

Keep in mind that this is from other people and not from my own experiance.

 

[drag]

Oh and this problem will be fixed in newer kernels. I am not sure what the cutt off point is (weither it's 2.6.18 or 2.6.20 or what) were support for those jmicron things work out well.

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: drag
Oh and this problem will be fixed in newer kernels. I am not sure what the cutt off point is (weither it's 2.6.18 or 2.6.20 or what) were support for those jmicron things work out well.

Well consider me a Linux noob. I mean ive installed fedora about 4 times on a dell laptop (A new latitude with a core 2). Aside from that and following some guides on installing the USRP onto fedora core 6 I am awful. However once its all configured its just a matter of coding which I can handle.

So is Fedora 6 a problem with jmicron likely or is it a new kernal or what do you mean?

Sorry normally I know my stuff with computers but I feel so stupid when it comes to linux

 

[Nothinman]

So is Fedora 6 a problem with jmicron likely or is it a new kernal or what do you mean?

You'll have to install FC6 with the 2.6.18 kernel it was released with so it'll probably be problematic, I don't think the JMicron stuff got merged until 2.6.19.

 

[drag]

Yep. The problem is realy only a problem during the installation. If the Linux installer doesn't have drivers for the IDE controller for the cdrom then you'll have a hard time installing Linux.

Once you get a system installed then you upgrade the kernel past 2.6.18 or whatever it is to get Jmicron support. Then your all hunky-dory.

From looking at one of Fedora's mirrors it appears that they have updates aviable that include the 2.6.20 kernel. So if you can get your system installed, then you do a update, then you should have no further issues with the jmicron stuff.

 

[Brazen]

the Jmicron stuff did not get merged until maybe 2.6.19 or I actually think it is 2.6.20. Ubuntu Feisty Fawn did not have it until right before it was released final. Even the release candidate from a week before did not work. Although I would not suggest using Feisty for a server, nor would I suggest Fedora - stick with CentOS on the Redhat side or Debian Stable or the LTS releases of Ubuntu (currently Dapper) on the Debian side.