Linux and Passive Motherboards

silencetowrite · Post by **silencetowrite** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:53 pm

I hope to build an AMD64 system this summer. Linux has been my primary operating system for almost a year now, and I'd like to keep it that way. So I'm trying to limit compatibility problems by picking well supported hardware. (My main distro is SUSE.)

I'm leaning towards the Asus A8N SLI Premium because I've read that it's stable and well featured. Do you any of you Linux users have any input about this board? Are there any major problems with the integrated features?

Thanks.

donut · Post by **donut** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 12:06 am

I've used all the features with no problems, other than firewire for which I don't have any devices to test with (the driver does detect it though.) I'm using Ubuntu Breezy.

silencetowrite · Post by **silencetowrite** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:12 pm

Thanks. Ubuntu does handle hardware pretty well.

About the board...I'm asking because I've read that there are problems with some of the integrated devices on the board. The raid, in particular, was supposed to be buggy because it is software based (or something to that effect). I was reading another forum--i think it was linuxquestions.org--and someone recommended the Abit AN8 Ultra.

Do any other Linux users have passively cooled MB? (Asus, Abit, or otherwise?) What's your take on the best balance of silence and Linux compatibility.

Also, are there any boards you'd recommend avoiding out right? Thanks!

donut · Post by **donut** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 8:52 pm

Oh, yeah. I haven't touched the bios raid. I use the linux md raid instead. There isn't a single (consumer-level) motherboard that actually has hardware raid on it, no matter what the advertisements might say, so don't worry about choosing a motherboard based on that. Just use linux's raid and you'll be better off (more reliable, you can move your drives to any system and they'll still work, etc.)

If you want real hardware raid controller, expect to pay at least $300-400 for a raid card.

The abit boards have a proprietary sensor chip that lm_sensors can't use ("uguru"), and abit refuses to divulge any information about it. So I avoid them. Other than that I don't have any particular recommendations.