Hello all,
I'm currently doing the 'research' on the hardware for my new self built computer. I want to build it with the utmost Linux compatibility 'from the ground up' as it were. I am looking for advice on a suitable motherboard for my needs., which are that the board;

-Must be socket 754 (support AMD64).
-Must support SATA under Linux.
-Must support Firewire under Linux.
-Preferrably support 5.1 sound under Linux.

Any ideas guys? or am I dreaming!!

This is a commercial site, but it lists a lot of good techincal info. You can refine your search using the "Advanced Search" function to zero in on the socket, SATA, etc. http://www.newegg.com/app/manufactor...alog=22&DEPA=0

They're a good vendor too by the way, although it looks like you're across the ocean and they're based here in the US. You should be able to at least identify some mobos for further consideration and/or disqualify others. Good luck with the project -- J.W.

Thanks J.W.

I had a peek at the site and it looks good but didn't really help me as the chipsets drop down was rather limited (ie, no chips that I'm aware of that have Linux support for their implementation of SATA, I'm not sure about the K8T800 as it looks like it's distribution tied).

Thanks again for trying though.
Philip.

Perhaps I'm misreading your post but to zero in on SATA support, you need to use the Hard Drive Interface dropdown, rather than the chipset dropdown. Using that plus selecting the Socket 754 from the CPU Socket dropdown will return (currently) 29 different mobos from a variety of manufacturers, and each listing contains a pretty fair amount of info. As I indicated before, although this may not answer your original question perfectly, I would think it could be helpful in at least narrowing the set of boards under consideration, and thus would be worthwhile. If not, well no harm done.

Lastly, don't overlook the HCL here at LQ. In any event good luck with the project. -- J.W.

There are a few 754 socket motherboards out there. Do not be too dependent on the features of the motherboard or you will not find a motherboard at all.

ABIT KV8
ASUS K8V-DELUXE
GIGABYTE GA-K8VT800

The above motherboards have a VIA K8T800 that should work with out any problems. I was going to include nForce 150 and the nForce 250 but I do not know if Nvidia made some drivers for them yet. Usually latest VIA chipsets work in LINUX.

Very soon AMD is changing to the 939 sockets, so may not get the chance of upgrading the processor in the future. I say, you should wait a little longer. If you need the system now, spend on a good motherboard that does not have all the features built-in and get the fastest 754 socket processor. Also PCI-X will be out soon on motherboards.

IMO, including firewire, SATA controller, and many other features that is optional on a motherboard is like putting all your eggs in one basket. If for some reason the motherboard goes or you want to upgrade just the motherboard, you have to copy your data to another drive or get the same controller brand and by doing this you will lose money. Using PCI cards, you will not lose money and you will not have to copy data.

Dude - what the [blank] are you talking about? If the mobo goes bad, that is unrelated to the HD or the data stored on the HD. As for the comments about "losing money", you have utterly lost me.

If you want to switch a HD from one machine to another, the only relevant factor is whether or not the OS can read the file format on the new drive. The brand of the mobo itself is totally irrelevant. -- J..W.

Ah yes,
That does help J.W.
There appear to be a fair few SiS Southbridge based boards out there that should work with the libata driver (from my reading of it anyway).

As for a socket 939 board, are you sure it's not the socket 940 same as the opteron and Athlon FX?
I also believe that that expecting the motherboard to be able to handle most of the IO is the way it's going htese days and it is a good thing as it frees up th PCI slots for things that you WANT rather than things you NEED!!!

Anyway, thanks again for your help guys (other than when I look as US websites with components half the price they are here, curses !!)

J.W., what I am saying is if the motherboard has a Highpoint, Promise, or Silicon Image and the hard drive is connected to one of those controller brands. When you get another motherboard, connect it to a different brand. It will not work. I tried switching my hard drive that was on my Highpoint controller to the motherboard controller. The same goes to other systems. Switching from a VIA chipset to an INTEL will not work. Buying a seperate controller minimizes this problem. I rather buy a motherboard with just its IDE controller, a few usb, and thats it. Then buy IDE controllers, Firewire, NIC,sound card, etc. If you get a motherboard with a secondary IDE controller, you will not get the chance of upgrading the firmware. Its dependent on the motherboard BIOS.


murphaph, AMD have announced they are going to move from the 754 to the 939 (I think by August). The 939 socket makes finding memory a little easier so the user do not have to buy ECC memory. Though its going be hard to tell the difference of a 64-bit memory path to a 128-bit memory path processor. There will be 940 sockets but only for servers. The 939 sockets will mostly take over the 940. AMD stopped making 940 socket chips at this time. This is one reason why I suggest you wait.

Please do not get an SIS chipset. They are worthless for LINUX and Windows. Just scratch them off your lists or else you will have tons of problems.

Electro - I'm trying to understand your comments but I'm sorry I'm having a really hard time doing so. Controllers are important in terms of managing the traffic to/from a hard drive, but they do not have any effect on the format of the data being written to a disk. In other words, if I save a .jpg file onto a disk drive A in machine #1 under Linux, then disconnect and reinstall drive A into a machine #2 also running Linux, the file I saved will be accessible irrespective of what IDE controller either system may have used.

I think it's safe to say that most mobos for the past several years have built in controllers, and you don't need to buy anything special to allow your system to write to the hard drive. I've got one Dell machine and one home-grown machine with an Intel mobo, and there was absolutely zero problem taking one HD from one machine and installing it to the other. I have no idea what controller software/hardware may have been used, but it's a non-issue. Perhaps if you are buying standalone controllers, that fact itself is what's causing you trouble. Regards -- J.W.

Electro are you sure SiS are a no-go with Linux?
I read on Linuxmafia:

"SiS 964 South Bridge — is now (2004-03-01) supported in Jeff Garzik's libata driver set using a driver contributed by Uwe Koziolek"

Have you read that this chipset/driver are useless?

I'm thinking SATA under Linux may well be more trouble than it's worth at this time. It seems people are having a lot of trouble with it. I really don't need it enough to warrant buying a seperate controller card. Might just buy a mobo with SATA support for windows and IDE support for Linux.

Cheers,
Philip.

You can get a motherboard with SIS chipset but you are going to have a lot of problems. Even if there are some support you are going to have a lof trouble with them. If it was me, I will not think or not even look at the motherboard models that uses SIS chipsets.

A lot of people are having trouble with Silicon Image controllers. Other controllers works just fine. Just do not buy Seagate SATA hard drives or you are going to run in DMA problems.

Yeah I read about a problem with seagate drives that has yet to be resolved, no worries-I've always been a Maxtor fan anyway.

Do you have any links to websites or discussions about the SiS/Silicon Image controller problems?

Do you know of any onboard controllers known to work fine?