Looking for uATX mobo strictly for linux

[Netopia]

Hey all,

I've been looking around for a uATX all-in-one motherboard to use in a small box as a linux server. I've got a Duron and a stick of SDRAM just sitting here, so I'm after a board that supports those. I've looked and found plenty of boards, but none of them seem to have drivers for Linux. Any ideas?

Thanks In Advance,

Joe

 

[gaidin123]

What kinds of drivers are you needing? Linux will probably work with most hardware out there without any manufacturer supplied drivers. Most all of the drivers will be included in the Linux kernel and you may have to rebuild a kernel to get all of your devices properly supported.

With that said I personally have used Linux on KT133 and KT133A chipset based boards which is probably the chipset you'll end up with (or a low cost derivative like the KLE133 or KM133) and haven't had any problems.

I have the Soltek SL-75KIV micro-atx KT133A based motherboard which has since been discontinued according to Soltek. It's sat there running Linux for a good half year solid on a Duron overclocked to 800/133.

I'm actually looking for a low power system to do something similar (low power and quiet linux router/gateway).

Good luck!
Gaidin

 

[Peter]

PC-Chips M810LMR runs very neatly with Linux. You need a recent XFree to get the integrated graphics working,
and you need to compile the AMR modem driver from source. Everything else onboard, sound, USB, IDE, AGP, LAN,
is supported right out of the box in recent distributions.

regards, Peter

 

[Netopia]

<< I'm actually looking for a low power system to do something similar (low power and quiet linux router/gateway). >>



Have you looked at the Shuttle sv24? Anand did a reivew of it here. I don't know about all of the linux drivers, but ass for quiet, it is getting rave reviews about quite... plus the fact that you can use a new Cyrix C3-933 for about $65 and that chip runs fine with just a heatsink and no fan!

Anyway... it's a nice all in one. Don't know if it meets your needs or not, but I figured that I'd give it a shot.

Joe

 

[Netopia]

Peter

Long time no talk to!

I considered the M810LMR, but couldn't find any links on the webpage to drivers for linux, so I moved on. If you have it up and running fine, then I may rethink that.

Thanks,

Joe

 

[gaidin123]

<<
I considered the M810LMR, but couldn't find any links on the webpage to drivers for linux, so I moved on. If you have it up and running fine, then I may rethink that.
>>



Sorry I'm still confused. What drivers specifically are you looking for? For Linux in general you never need to download separate manufacturer provided drivers for things such as onboard LAN, sound, or chipset functions. Most manufacturers do not support Linux in any form and so it's up to the users or companies with a vested interest in Linux to provide drivers for their hardware. Most of the hardware drivers are contained in the kernel source code and you basically just select them on, off, or module (loadable on demand).

Linux's driver support is kind of like Windows' driver database. For all but the newest or most obscure hardware Windows usually has some sort of driver that will work with the hardware. It's the same way for Linux except that Linux seems to have some extremely obscure devices that it supports. The only thing you'll have to worry about that the kernel won't provide is the graphics driver. That's a function of XFree86. If you aren't going to be using a graphical environment for your server then you don't need to worry at all about drivers for it.

Thanks for the link to the Shuttle review. Yes that's one of the ones I'm thinking of (actually the SV25 which now supports Intel Tualatin CPUS) though Newegg seems to have a nice sounding MSI based barebones system. The case is not great looking but it's got a lot of features for the price.

Gaidin

 

[Peter]

gaidin, if you want low power, low noise, low cost, consider using PC-Chips M787CLR. This has the VIA PLE133 chipset,
everything onboard including LAN, and also has a VIA C3 667 MHz soldered right on, with heatsink and a tiny little fan
mounted right out of the box. AMR modem card also included.

This thing runs fine and well in Linux (even the AMR modem!), I just set one box up using SuSE 7.3. X happily adopted the PLE133's
"Trident CyberBlade i1" graphics unit as well.

regards, Peter