linux and motherboards
 

i'm about to build a new workstation and am looking for a motherboard that will work well with shrike. i have a couple of boxes up and running now. one is an msi k7-n2 the other is an asus a7a-266.

the k7n has a couple of driver problems. primarily with the nic and audio. further, it has problems with the sata controller... siig. it will not allow dma.

the asus seems to have no porblems. it works just fine.

can anyone tell me the best boards to use with the os that i want.
i want serial ata. this is the most important thing. even if it isn't onboard, i want serial ata.

thanks in advance

chris

Moved: More suitable in our Hardware forum.

And you should check out our HCL to see what motherboards are best in using Linux, compatible, etc.

talkinggoat & trickykid; found from this source: monarch computer systems
support tech that most mobo mfg compatible with linux as always some are
not all are. that being said here are the ones used by mcs in their systems:
tyan(server mainly )but do have drivers,abit and not least bfi. advise research and inquire prior to commiting to purchasing any component.

These days, just about any motherboard from any motherboard manufacture will work in Linux. What I read, getting Silicon Image SATA controllers to work is a pain, so use other SATA controllers that are not on-board. Also Seagate SATA hard drives are a pain to setup using DMA, use either Hitachi/IBM, Western Digital, or Maxtor. If you are setting up RAID on Silicon Image, Promise, Highpoint use Linux's built in software raid module. If you do not want software raid you can go with hardware raid from 3ware although you need a 64-bit PCI slot. On-board sound mostly works because each motherboard manufacture uses different audio chips and it is programmed differently. Use PCI sound cards. I like Turtle Beach Santa Cruz because it has much better sound quality than Creative Labs sound cards. On-board nic is the same thing as on-board sound. Its best to use a PCI nic. Please to keep you from pulling your hair out, do not buy SIS chipsets.