Motherboard Recommendations
 

I’m looking for an Athlon XP compatible motherboard that has onboard lan, sound & raid, and for all of that onboard hardware to be supported under Red Hat right out of the box. ASUS’s A7V8X has everything I want but I have no idea if it will work.

I’ve been running Mandrake on my main system (duel boot with XP) so I’ve gotten somewhat comfortable with linux but the experience of getting everything to work on my A7N8X motherboard was less then pleasant thanks to pretty much nothing working with out a good deal of effort, and even still it has some issues. I want to build a new system specifically to run linux on, and I don’t want much of a headache in doing so.

i don't have much of any input on this one other than i agree about the A7N8X boards being a pain in the ass, i had that experience before. it would be nice though if someone out there had some good advise for you, i am also interested in a answer, not because I'm looking at buying but because this is one area that can use improvement for the linux user. it would be nice if there was some better information around here on what hardware is best supported. going to your distro's website sometimes doesn't tell you anything except if its supported or not. it doesn't tell you it might take days to get it working :)

maybe its worth sticking with Intel if AMD doesn't want to make it easy for the linux user. Intel does seem to be more widely supported probably because there is more Intel boards than AMD. you might want to keep that in mind. its not like AMD is less evil than intel :) there name is also on the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance

I've got a spare Athlon XP 1800+ and hense I'm fairly motivated to go AMD. It really would be nice if there was somewhere to go to find out what hardware works with out any trouble. "Supported" shouldn't mean - somebody somewhere somehow got it to work... I wouldn't really blame AMD as much as I would blame nVidia - I find it mildly ridiculous that their drivers aren't built into Linux (This is a licensing problem right?). At any rate it seems to me like it's impossible to build a PC without using parts made by a TCPA member :(

a good, cheap choice might be a kbit. i think they resale for fairly little and are usually capability loaded (raid, onboard sound, etc.), but not always with the integral NIC.

i have a tyan and i'm very happy with it. they're pretty solid, but i think they don't usually have sound.

look on ebay.

gl,
y-p

i've never had a problem with Epox boards -- great features, great prices, and the two i have owned (8K3A+ and 8RDA+) have been fully linux compatible with no problems. their nforce2 mobos seem especially easy to set up with the nvidia integrated drivers.

there's a linux hardware site called linuxcompatible.com, i believe. i haven't checked it out too much, but it might have specific recommendations about what you're looking for.

I have good experience with the Gigabyte - what is it, GA7DXR or so, and the ASUS’s A7V8X. Work w/Linux out of the box, no jumpers, Promise IDE Raid on board. I've had both for a few months now, there may be newer versions of both. One is at work and on 24/7, the other at home and on 12/7. Never had a problem.

Hope it helps
mlp

If the A7V8X does indeed work right out of the box that's exactly what I wanted to hear - thanks.