Hi all,
I have been poking around the site for a bit and wanted to post to see if anyone has some basic tips for building my 1st Linux box. From what i've seen so far I should stay away from Asus boards...any other specific brands/components I should stay away from? I'm thinking of doing a Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2 mobo with a AMD Athlon X2 64 3800 and running Ubuntu 8.10. Does this sound like a good combo? Any help pointing me in the right direction would be great!! Oh, and my goal is to put a machine together for about $250, and so far this looks do-able from what i've seen on Newegg. What do ya'll think?
Thanks!!

If open source is your thing, then you probably want to stay away from Broadcom wireless drivers. I believe Intel supplies open source drivers for both their graphics and wireless cards.

Also, 200 GB of RAM on that MBP? NICE!

For the motherboard, check these places:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php/cat/8
http://hardware4linux.info/

My advice is stay away from components made by Marvel/Yukon, Silicon Image, and JMicron. I would also not buy an ATI graphics card, and if you want to play games know that the integrated Intel graphics chipsets are worthless.

Cool, thanks for the replies so far guys/gals. Also, i forgot to mention that it'll need to have a wireless card in it as well. So, with keeping in mind to stay away from Broadcom...what are your suggestions? I saw a TrendNet one on newegg for about $19 (supports b/g/n) and a Gigabyte one for $16 (only b/g). Are there any preferred wireless card manufacturers? Sorry if some of these questions sound dumb...

For wireless you want this link right here.
http://linuxwireless.org/ and this one
http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

Um what's wrong with ASUS boards? I've been using them for years, and haven't had any problems with running linux on them yet. For video I'ld go with Nvidia. Oh back to the board's I'ld stay away from BioStar also, the last 6 systems I've worked on for people have all had bad MB's all of them were BioStars.

Personally include shuttle in with Biostar. I have had great luck with Asus and Foxconn when building linux systems. My current linux server is running an old asus motherboard and and athlon xp processor.

Your Gigabyte board seems fine except that it has only 2 SATA ports and one IDE port. This MAY be a limiting factor, depending on the number of hard/optical drives you choose to have. It is important to have your data backed up but you may choose to have just a single hard drive and just one optical drive.
I like the general quality of Gigabyte boards, so if the number of SATA ports is not an important factor then I suggest you back your hunch.

If you need a board with 4 SATA ports you could do worse than getting this:

Foxconn A74MX-K AM2+/AM2 AMD 740G Micro ATX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813186151

Whichever one you choose, just mate it to some decent Corsair 6400pc RAM, nvidia graphics and a dual core AMD cpu (3800 or 4600).

Double check your proposed wireless card's compatibility in the Ubuntu forums.

Have fun building your first new Linux box. It will not be your last!

And
You can pay too little for a power supply, get a poor one, and have hard to trace stability problems. In general, within your budget, think of quality as much as you think of performance

And just in case
I assume that you have been inside a computer case before and know about wrist straps and no magnetic tools and an insulating work surface and such. The few,right tools are cheap and guides are available.

And last
Google your choices of components and linux or your choice of distributions for problems, trouble, not working, etc before you buy.

Have fun I built and am glad.

Your board seems a wise choice. Truly, when it comes to motherboard it's the chipset the main thing to look at, except in rare cases.

Yours integrates an nForce chip which is well supported from my experience (I never had issues at least). The integrated nvidia and realtek stuff should work as well without any problem (the 6100 is not the top.most cpu, but well... it's an integrated chip after all). Having few ports for SATA and IDE might or might not be a problem for you. You are the one to evaluate that... You can always attach external cases via usb, and with the size of the disks you are going to have nowadays that shouldn't be a big problem, but each one knows what s/he needs.

I know nothing about wireless stuff so can't comment on that.

As far as my knowledge is concern if there is???? it has nothing to do with motherboard or fatherboard it is with processor and types of memory. Computers are doing checksumming from the start....if there is no error...continue....if false...error...:-)

I don't know what do you mean at all. We are talking about compatibility of a given hardware with linux, and not the BIOS power on self test or something else (if that's what you mean at all).

In regards to hardware vs. linux, x86 and x86_64 cpus will always be supported. It doesn't matter which manufacturer do you pick, as long as its product is compatible with either of these generic architectures (or any other from a wide range that linux support, the world doesn't end at x86).

Ram will work as long as the motherboard can handle it.

On the contrary, if you haven't a driver for the chipset, then you are screwed. At most you will be able to use your disks with a generic driver. On the worst case, you will not be able to use them at all, and hence, you will not be able to boot. That's just the start, the rest of devices controlled by the chipset will not work either. That includes usb, network devices, agp, acpi devices, sensors, etc. etc. but that doesn't matter so much if you can't boot.

thorkelljarl is right about choosing a good quality psu. Do not get a cheap and nasty one, it is false economy.
He is also right about using a wrist strap at all times when handling pc components.
In addition, do not let the family cat come to assist you whilst you are building your pc. Static equals dead pc components!

Seasonic and Corsair are probably out of your budget at the moment but you may find a standalone Antec or similar. Perhaps others can advise you.
Newegg often has good offers on Antec cases which include a decent psu.

Do not get carried away by big numbers on the psu wattage. You will probably only need around 300w.
Check here first.
http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/

Just thought i would add 5c lol.

For a PSU you need to consider a few things. How many case fans, type of video card, overclocking and such. Best idea is to design your system the way you would like it and decide on power requirements after. 400W will not boot my system without serious errors but might be a screaming demon on yours depending on power needs.

All 3 of my computers run asus boards without problems so they are not all too bad. Would only recommend as previously suggested is find the board you think you would like and then check its customer ratings and could even check and see if people are using it with linux with a simple google search. As previously posted you need to watch the chipsets on motherboards as they are the biggest killers.

Do recommend nvidia graphics cards with linux. Linux drivers are readily available and so far run awesome on all my systems with few problems with all the distro's that i have tried. You can buy descent ones cheap (nice for budget builds) or shell out cash if you want serious gaming graphics.

Make sure the case that you choose will hold whatever you want to put in it. Bought nice cases for all my systems because cases can seriously outlast any hardware you put in them and if you take care of them, will be around for many subsequent builds.

Lastly, spend the extra few dollars on a wrist strap at least and build with care watching for possible shorts along the way (ex. make sure motherboard does not touch its mount plate and all studs are under stud holes in motherboard and such). The previous posts are correct better to be safe than buy new parts, especially on a budget build.

It is possible to build a nice budget system with a little research on all items you consider buying. Might also check and see what other people are running. You might find cheaper ways to build a better and overall more stable system.

Hope this helps and good luck on your build.

Chieftec makes good PSUs too.