Calling Linux Users

adciv · Post by **adciv** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 1:50 am

Ok, I'm looking at building my next computer. Ive got pretty much all the pieces worked out except one. The motherboard. I'm trying to get one that will be fully Linux compatible and I'm looking for places to check that will tell me if it is or not.

Also, any personal experience with different companies and their support for linux (or lack there of) would be welcome.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:41 am

MasteR · Post by **MasteR** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 2:42 pm

What do you mean by "companies and their support"? Do you want phone-in tech support, or do you just mean software support as in they write software for Linux?
What distro are you going to be using? Support will depend on the distro in a lot of cases.

Now as for the motherboard... well thats kind of iffy. It is kind of hit or miss sometimes. The Linux Questions HCL is a good place to start to check for compatablility. http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php

adciv · Post by **adciv** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:53 pm

Driver support, as in you can get drivers for Linux.

I haven't even decided on a Linux distro yet, so I'm open to a lot of things.

pc486 · Post by **pc486** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 12:29 am

It all depends on what you want. Wireless or just plain-old-ethernet? What about 3D support? Are you buying a printer too, or do you have an existing one?

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/ seems to have a good list for most hardware. I use http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting when looking for printers, but if it's for cheap printing then it's usually HP for injets and Samsung for lasers.

In general most motherboards and CPUs are fully supported. Sometimes temperature sensors wont work without the latest software, but most of the stuff is install and go. The only failure I've had recently is with a Marvell IDE controller that I wasn't using and noted that there wasn't a driver for it. Now there seems to be a driver for it.

Most of the problems are going to be with 3D and wireless. Wise choices here lead to less frustration later.

adciv · Post by **adciv** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 12:36 am

Specs:
Gigabit Ethernet (wired)
PCI Express
SATA
Core2 Duo

Video Card is going to be a seperate NVIDIA
Sound I don't really care about.

I'm not woried about peripherals, just the motherboard at this point. I'm going to be dual booting with XP on the other side.

Post by **Martin Blank** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 7:42 am

You're covered by any x86 distro that has been updated in the last year. If you run x86_64, there's a tiny tweak you need to do regarding dual-core and the timers, but it's a single line in the grub.conf file (I don't know where it goes in lilo), and will reportedly be dealt with natively in 2.6.20.

pc486 · Post by **pc486** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:20 pm

As Martin said, most of that stuff will work fine. For GbE, I recommend staying away from the Marvell controllers. I get nothing but trouble from them. I've extensively tested Broadcom and Intel controllers and can vouch for their stability and performance.

My other comment is on the NVIDIA card. NVIDIA cards are supported by a open source 2D driver and a closed-source 3D driver. The problem with the closed-source driver is that it's a pain to keep it working during the lifetime of the machine. Every kernel update and sometimes x.org update requires the driver to be updated as well. Failure to do so results in no graphics and plenty of terminal use to get it working again. A friend of mine went though this with the last Ubuntu kernel update

. The open source 2D driver is also known to be problematic with some cards, so it isn't supper-happy-land either. Some developers are working on the nouveau project to provide a solid non-sanitized open source 2D and 3D driver, but it's a good year or two away from being desktop-ready. Overall NVIDIA isn't a bad choice, but it's not a effort-free solution.

IMHO, there's only a two good 3D video drivers for Linux (good = stable, open source, supported, and maintainable) that you might be able to use in your machine:
* Intel's GMA 900, 950, and X3000 are fully supported and being actively developed by some of the biggest names in Mesa (3D OpenGL core) and X.org development. I'm using a development branch and it's rock-solid stable. There's a few rough edges with the G965, but it's much better than Nvidia's or ATi's binary driver options. Here's their site: Linux Graphics Drivers from Intel
* ATi's Radeon 9200 or older cards are well supported by open source drivers. All those fancy AIGLX 3D desktop demos you see on Youtube were originally developed with this series cards. There is also extensive work going on for the R300 (9500-9800) and R400 (X300-X850) series. If you don't mind rough edges there, then the R300 and R400 cards are also decent choices.

Tawnos · Post by **Tawnos** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 11:42 pm

pc486, the nvidia driver thing isn't much of a PITA to fix.... just remember to install the nvidia module before rebooting after a new kernel is installed.

if you forgot, it should only take about 20 seconds of command line stuff to get it fixed again (install driver, kill your now defunct xdm, start xdm)

adciv · Post by **adciv** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 1:27 am

Thanks. By any chance, do you know of a site that lists these useful things to remember? Or the commands for doing so?

BTW, interesting name. Do you play?

Tawnos · Post by **Tawnos** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 4:37 am

Which distribution? In theory, you could do it the same way for all distros: download the source package from nVidia, save it somewhere, then the reinstall goes something like this:
cd /location/of/driver/
./nvidia-installer-file.run
answer questions
ps ax |grep -i xdm (or kdm, or gdm, or whatever x windows login manager you use)
kill #### (obtained from the previous command)
xdm (or kdm, or gdm, or whatever x windows login manager you use)

.. of course, I use gentoo, so I just type: emerge nvidia-drivers

I played... um, 8-9 years ago? This nick was chosen right after "The Brother's War" came out, so I guess in 1998.

pc486 · Post by **pc486** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:35 am

You've sort-of shown my point about the nvidia drivers, Tawnos. First the user has to make sure that they're updated the driver before they reboot into a new kernel. This also means the user noticed that a kernel update was performed. These are road blocks that need to be acknowledged and avoided.

For example, kernel updates can be hidden in a mass of other updates. My aforementioned friend didn't notice that a kernel update occurred and was left with a unusable machine. Opps. Also, the nvidia driver needs to support the updated kernel release. I've ran into this problem countless times, usually solved by downloading the latest nvidia driver with lynx or w3m or by chatting on IRC with irssi and locating some patches. Not exactly the easiest problem to deal with.

My point is this: a large portion of popular Linux distributions do not include the nvidia binary driver for various reasons. This means the nvidia drivers are unsupported, often lagging in updates, and difficult for beginners (requires using the command line) to install. That's what I'd call a PITA. Nvidia's binary drivers simply cannot compare to the intel or radeon drivers in this regard.

I don't use Gentoo myself because, IMHO, it's a pain to setup and maintain. All that said, it's good to hear that Gentoo maintains and supports nvidia releases inside their package management system.

OT: I've got a better way of restarting the login manager (xdm in this case):

Code: Select all

$ /etc/init.d/xdm restart

This assumes your distribution is Linux Standard Base compliant, and I'm willing to bet that Gentoo is. Also, as towards installing nvidia drivers, you should probably stop X/xdm/whatever before installing the driver. If I recall my past experiences with the nvidia driver correctly, it requires you do that. This may not be the case with the new 9xxx series that I haven't tried yet.

Wait, there's more! The killall command will do the job of locating a or several PIDs and then kill them. I prefer it because it's less typing than ps foo | grep bar; kill $PID.

adciv · Post by **adciv** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:40 am

My aforementioned friend didn't notice that a kernel update occurred

Please tell me that there is a way to disable Automatic Updates. I have auto update disabled on all my windows machines by default, as I like to know what the hell is going on. I then do them manually.

Tawnos · Post by **Tawnos** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:47 am

I'd say that you'd be left in a state far from unusable unless you are deleting your old kernel before rebooting (which would be, for lack of a better word, moronic). Why? Because you can just reboot to your "working" (gui) kernel and install the nvidia drivers that were forgotten, using gui tools.

The reason I switched from ATI to nVidia was in part due to the drivers... an X11 or kernel update left the ATI drivers unusable for a long period of time. I needed a feature of the new kernel('s wireless stack) and didn't want to play mix and match. Being in the market for a new card already, the only sane option was nVidia drivers. Since then, I've had 1/10 the issues I ever had with ATI drivers in linux. Maybe they've gotten better, but I won't cross that bridge until I come to it again.

I don't know about Intel video drivers, because, honestly... why would I have an intel video card? If you say "laptop" then I counter with "mobile chipset from ATI/nVidia"...

Long point above shortened: Any driver can end up needing a recompile/reinstall due to an ABI change. It's one thing that still plagues the linux as a desktop... there's no standard vga driver that is automatically fallen back upon when something goes haywire.

Posted Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:56 am:

[quote="adciv";p="720216"]

My aforementioned friend didn't notice that a kernel update occurred

Please tell me that there is a way to disable Automatic Updates. I have auto update disabled on all my windows machines by default, as I like to know what the hell is going on. I then do them manually.[/quote]

You still haven't given us a distro to answer you by

Post by **Martin Blank** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:22 am

Several RPM-based distros utilize yum, which can have a service (yum or yum-updates, IIRC) enabled by default. Disable this service (in RH and related by running chkconfig --level 0123456 {yum|yum-updates} off to be completely sure) and you have no more auto-updating.

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