Zdenko,

I have good news for you.

This Gigabyte board has an Intel® GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit):

Gigabyte GA-Z97-D3H Socket 1150 VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX

http://www.ebuyer.com/642647-gigabyt...ard-ga-z97-d3h

There is very positive feedback on Amazon UK for this board:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Z97.../dp/B00K9R1MYW


This is an ATX board, in case that makes any difference. The one I bought was mATX.

@syg00,

Thanks for your input. If this is your board then it has an Intel LAN according to Gigabyte Support, not a Realtek one like mine.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=4960#ov

I could not believe it when I was unable to access the internet and install Ubuntu 14.04 after a new build.

This had happened once before with another Gigabyte board with an Atheros LAN.
Exactly the same scenario, totally stuck!

That is how I came to discover the Intel Gigabit PRO 1000CT PCIe Adapter and get myself online.

There are also USB 3.0 to LAN adapters, such as this Anker one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anker%C2%AE-...to+LAN+adapter

NB I am assuming that this adapter works okay with Linux. I have never actually tried one.

As I mentioned earlier, if anybody has any alternative ways of accessing the internet, without spending extra money, when confronted by a LAN which is not recognised by Linux, then I am all ears.

Any takers?

Thanks for the headsup and links, beachboy2.

A quick question, then: I notice the card you linked to has Intel LAN but Realtek audio. Does this mean I should expect audio problems, or is it just non-Intel LAN that causes Linux grief?

Thanks.

Zdenko,

The Realtek audio should present no problems in Linux.

It is the LAN that is important.

Get that Gigabyte board (GA-Z97-D3H Socket 1150) ordered pronto!

NB Make sure that you get the ATX version with Intel LAN:

http://www.ebuyer.com/642647-gigabyt...ard-ga-z97-d3h

NOT this mATX one with Realtek LAN:

http://www.ebuyer.com/642654-gigabyt...tx-ga-z97m-d3h

Ok, thanks for letting me know. It looks like the best option. I found 2 in a store near me - will go and buy it tomorrow.

Zdenko,

Well done.

syg00: Arch is good news; I aim to transfer from Kubuntu to Manjaro, which is Arch-based.

As it turned out the store's inventory was out of date and so I ordered it for them to bring in. Which is a good thing, as it gave me more time to consider something I neglected:

For my purposes it would be nice to future proof things a little and have SLI support. In the future the price of 780 Ti will come down and I can buy a 2nd to plug in and run it on 2 way SLI, rather than breaking the bank for a newer card to run on its own with (perhaps) worse performance than two 780 Tis.

So I used PCPartPicker to narrow down the options. I stuck to Gigabyte, based on the positive comments about them above. I looked for 1150 and 2 way SLI support.

Here's what I got:

Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI

Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H
This must be extremely similar to the GA-Z97-D3H you guys recommended, no?

Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3

Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5


I'm looking through the cards to see if they have the all-important, Linux-friendly Intel Ethernet, but I can't find this anywhere.

Do you guys see any reason to avoid any of the cards above? (Some hidden Realtek nastiness lurking somewhere, for example?)

Thanks again for your time and help!

Zdenko,

You do not need to look far to find this information on Newegg's site (and others) for the various boards.

The first one is SLI, the second one isn't.

Both have Intel LANs.

1. Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI Intel Motherboard

Supports 4th and 5th Generation Intel® Core™ processors
Extreme multi graphics support
SATA Express support for 10Gbps data transfer
M.2 for SSDs drives with up to 10Gbps data transfer
Intel GbE LAN with CFOS internet accelerator software
Realtek ALC1150 115dB SNR HD Audio with built-in rear audio amplifier
Long lifespan Durable Solid caps
APP Center including EasyTune™ and Cloud Station™ utilities
GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™



2. GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD3H Intel Motherboard

Supports 4th and 5th Generation Intel® Core™ processors
Extreme multi graphics support
SATA Express support for 10 Gb/s data transfer
M.2 for SSDs drives with up to 10 Gb/s data transfer
Intel GbE LAN with CFOS internet accelerator software
Realtek ALC1150 115dB SNR HD Audio with built-in rear audio amplifier
2x copper PCB design
Highly efficient MOSFET design
Long lifespan Durable Black Solid caps
APP Center including EasyTune™ and Cloud Station™ utilities
GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™

Yes, you are right. Thank you for pointing this out. I didn't visit NewEgg and didn't see this on other sites.

A good few rule(s) I stick by when buying hardware for Linux:

1. How long has the hardware been out?

Bleeding edge hardware will probably not have drivers for at least 3~12 months in Linux after release. At best with hardware under 6 months you may only have staging drivers, you will be required to use firmware, and drivers will only be at a "get it working" level.

2. How well is the hardware supported?

OEMs that provide to Linux, such as driver code, whitepapers, code samples, etc. will get drivers faster and have higher quality than those who are left to reverse engineering only efforts. Do your research before you buy. If an OEM provides drivers, proprietary or open source, try to stick with them.

3. Does the hardware require lots of firmware?

Some distributions frown on firmware, even when the firmware is openly given to Linux developers and is freely redistributable. These "Libre" inclined distributions tend to keep firmware separate from the main distribution or simply do not include it. When in doubt, just stick to non-Libre unless you know 100% you will never require firmware.

So, thanks to everyone for all your advice. I actually found it useful and interesting. I learned everything from NewEgg (I'm not based in the US so I never really visited it before), through to the various merits of Intel LAN, as well as Gigabyte/ASUS vs MSI and Linux-friendliness. (Oh, and the recent bit from ReaperX7 on firmware).

This thread is probably going to come to a close, since the main point of it is finished. You'll all be horrified to learn, no doubt, that in the end I didn't buy the Gigabyte board we previously discussed - but only because the one I wanted wasn't stocked nearby.

However, I am happy to report that I did succeed in my mission, and with the benefit of your help: I bought an Asus Z97-AR. This satisfies my requirement to have the 1150 chipset, SLI support AND, perhaps crucially, it's been around for a while. It also sports Intel LAN.

After the inconvenience of swapping out the old MSI mobo for the Asus (and upgrading my case at the same time), I booted up Manjaro KDE... and off the bat everything worked like a dream. So, for the benefit of any future people who might have a similar problem, here is my rig and it works great on Manjaro at least (though probably therefore on Arch also):

- Asus Z97-AR
- i7 4770K 3.5 Ghz (not currently overclocked)
- MSI Nvidia GTX 780 Ti
- Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB BK OEM
- Fractal Design Define R5
- Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x 8GB) 2133 MHz (though running at 1333 Mhz at the mo)
- Asus DVD-RW
- Manjaro 15.12 KDE (Capella)

In some way, I was glad to find the Asus Z97-AR: it had good reviews as a non-nonsense board, it's been around a while and some of its close relatives seemed to be reported as working well with other Linux distros (encouraging sign). The only thing I did was to switch off Secure Boot (or whatever it's called) in the BIOS/UEFI. That also reports my RAM is only at 1333 MHz, so the next step is to work out how to bump that up to all it could be.

For what it's worth, I'll throw in the additional detail that Manjaro's Thus installer even automatically installed the correct NVidia drivers.

Thanks to everyone for your help! I really appreciate it!