I'm wanting to get a new computer and some of the motherboards are listed as being Linux compatible, and some aren't (as in: they just don't list compatibility at all, or list OSs and Linux isn't in them)....so I'm looking for a resource listing for AM2 and 775 (and above) processor socket motherboards that are good for Linux.

Also (and cause I haven't bought a machine for ages I'm not even sure how commonplace a feature this is!) a BIOS that allows more than one booting, but from different SATA ports - I'd prefer to put the main OSs on their own hard drives each, instead of on partitions, and be able to select them from the boot menu.

Reading over some similar threads - is SATA a problem with Linux? I'm sure a lot of datacenters and HPC set-ups use them ok along with Linux distros.

Cheers for any advice.

I think almost all of them are compatible with Linux.

I think the HCL is supposed to give that info
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/
but I find that a very hard resource to use.

You might want to look up the "north bridge" and "south bridge" part numbers from a motherboard you are considering and then google them together with "linux" to see whether you find any positive or negative comments. (though I didn't bother with any of that for the motherboard ordered last night for Linux. I just assumed it would work).

I'd be surprised if there are any that don't allow that.

I think that's a waste of money and effort. A big capacity hard drive costs a lot less than two or more small ones. Partitioning and GRUB work real well for multiple OS's on one hard drive. The GRUB boot menu is easier to customize and easier to use than the BIOS boot menu.

Why should it be? Most new disk drives are SATA. Lots of Linux users use SATA disk drives.

I don't know why (sometimes) SATAs and some motherboards aren't compatible - they just haven't been made with Linux in mind I'd hazard a guess. I was refering to the other threads on this forum that have already discussed similar topics - I used the button to check for them before I posted.

I know nothing about the GRUB menu, I've only used boot.ini in Windows as yet to sort partition boots. It probably does cost more to have more than one HDD but I think it's cleaner to have one OS per drive, and it means you don't wear the drive out with as much seeking. If I do go for partitions it'll only be because of cash (and case space) restraints.

BIOSs boots are easy to configure - it's just that there aren't easy-to-find lists of what BIOS work on what motherboards, and what all of their features are. It's as difficult as trying to find a keyboard shop so you can test how a keyboard types before you buy one.

to install and then update the kernel to more compatible:
I use : http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/

I recently (few months back) had a few issues with support for a jmicron chipset.
Motherboard only came with one IDE controller, but it was enough for me to get up and build a kernel with all the support I needed.
I find Arch Linux is pretty current - supported the mobo almost as soon as I built my kernel.

I got troubles with jmicron too
hell it was

then I changed my bios and all went fine
i had too hardware issue with pci badly writting in my harddrives

i could make it work. first hardware and bios
that was my situation: http://yellowprotoss.ye.funpic.org/w...cron_etch.html


All works great now, Thanks Power Debian !

Cheers, I replied elsewhere about kernel rebuilds (to get a NIC seen by SUSE 10.1 - not for me exactly, but for college machines I rely on using to learn Linux on!).

Kernel rebuilds are not something I've done before, so I've been looking around to find out what it entails - eg, is it like reinstalling the OS and therefore do your files and any changes you made (since installing the OS the previous time) get wiped?

I recently learned how myself, as discussed in this thread:
http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=13518

The process was simpler than I expected. I didn't really do it right, but as far as I can tell there have been no negative consequences. A more correct approach is described here:

http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.p...g_a_new_kernel

I think that page makes the task seem more involved than it really is, but if it doesn't scare you away, I think it is a good page to follow.

Maybe I don't understand what you mean by "any changes". So far as I can tell, only one thing gets wiped when I switch kernels:

I need an obsolete version of the closed source nvidia driver from nvidia.com. I downloaded an install program that tries other install methods first that don't work, then falls back on recompiling the driver based on the current kernel. Fortunately the whole process is pretty smooth.

Every time I switch kernels, that driver isn't available and the install program insists on killing the copy installed for the old kernel before installing for the new kernel, so I need to reinstall even when switching back to a kernel on which it was previously installed.

But otherwise, I don't know of anything wiped. My desktop layout is preserved. My KDE customizations are preserved. My bookmarks in firefox are preserved. I don't know what "changes" you think might not be preserved.