I am using Intel and plan to switch to AMD as it is cheaper for a new set of PC. Therefore, I wish to know if there is much difference (including stability, driver support, etc) if I use AMD to run Linux. Thanks.

It's about the same.

Do yourself a favour, though and get a Via chipset motherboard. That way you don't have to mess about with nVidia's NForce drivers. Just something to think about.

Dave

I would like to confirm that bit of advice. I wish I had been given that piece of advice. I have a nv sata chipset which ubuntu ACPI implementation doesn't seem to like. Much simplier if didn't use the damn thing.

I would say get nvidia. nvidia is far faster than via chipsets, and works with the same comaptibility so long as you choose a distro with a reasonably new kernel. I can tell you from personal experience, I have a 64bit AMD board which uses ALi and ULi chipsets mostly, it works just fine, but you have to have a REALLY recent kernel to get good support for it, and compiling your own kernel is a pain with it trying to find all the proper options.

I'm having good results with nvidia chipsets here as well... AMD 64bit...

Well, VIA's performance is really not so good.
But nvidia is a bit tough for the installation.
Not yet make up my mind...

The problem with nVidia chipsets is it gets hotter than VIA chipsets. I recommend looking for motherboards that uses heat pipe cooling for nVidia chipsets because using an heatsink and fan are very, very noisy with this chipset brand. VIA K8T890 is marginally slower than nVidia's nForce4 chipset. You really will not know the difference of the two chipsets when doing day to day tasks. However, the nVidia chipsets uses about 1% less CPU resources than VIA chipsets. This means less latency.

For a reliable and stable setup for any computer, I suggest buying a power supply that has active power factor control and wide voltage range (at least 100 volts to 240 volts), ECC memory, and a motherboard from a good brand. ASUS is ok, but their quality of their motherboards look like shit for the price you are paying for.

AMD is introducing a new socket which will make the system you are buying become obsolete in a year. I suggest waiting until August or September.

A PC will be obsolete the moment you buy it anyway... There is ALWAYS something just around the corner

Thanks for your idea. New socket...things change quickly.

When the new socket come out I'll buy.... A cheaper 939

theres the new AMD cpu's and sockets comming out soon. AMD is (will) supporting ddr2.

i wouldnt go and buy a new cpu or proc right now.

btw, head to head, my sepron lappy (1.8ghz) beats my desktop celeron (2.6ghz) when both are running fc4.

even though the lappys got 256mb ram & the desktops got 512.

-weed