new notherboard [Linux Hardware]

Prev: Disk Drive Recommendations
Next: optical drives oddity ?

From: Dances With Crows on 3 Apr 2008 10:09

Blattus Slafaly staggered into the Black Sun and said:
> kid wrote:
>> Can someone help me find a linux compatible motherboard? It needs to
>> be amd x2 because I already have the processer.
> The motherboard drivers CD usually don't have Linux drivers.

The CD that comes with the board is typically totally irrelevant to
Linux users. The thing that Linux users need to do is to use a kernel
that was released a few months after the motherboard was released. That
way, all the chips on the board will have been figured out.

> Avoid onboard devices like built in ethernet, half modems, video, IrD,
> bluetooth, WIFI and stuff like that.

Um... huh? Practically all Ethernet cards are supported, whether
they're soldered to the motherboard or not. Generally, onboard video
should be avoided because its 3D performance sucks compared to what you
can get from a recent nVidia card. The vast majority of onboard video
cards will be supported in some way. 802.11 cards and LoseModems are
the only things are really problematic. For the former, use ndiswrapper
if you can't get a card with native Linux drivers. For the latter, get
something better than dialup, or if that's not an option, the vast
majority of Lucent LoseModems are supported with the evil binary-only
"ltmodem" modules.

> Get add on cards that Linux supports.

Better yet, google://"$BOARD_NAME Linux" for reports from the field
about how a board will work with various distros. You'll probably have
to filter the results from that by eyeball, though.

--
Life is a persistent hallucination, Death a mere illusion.
Taxes, however, are Objective Reality.
My blog and resume: http://crow202.dyndns.org:8080/wordpress/
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see

From: General Schvantzkopf on 3 Apr 2008 11:13

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:42:45 -0400, Blattus Slafaly ‰ ⁜ ☺ ♞ wrote:

> kid wrote:
>> Can someone help me find a linux compatible motherboard? It needs to
>> be
>> amd x2 because I already have the processer.
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>>
>>
> Avoid onboard devices like built in ethernet, half modems, video, IrD,
> bluetooth, WIFI and stuff like that. The motherboard drivers CD usually
> don't have Linux drivers.
> Get add on cards that Linux supports.

This is absolutely wrong. Ethernet controllers all work out of the box as
do virtually all graphics chips. WiFi is the only thing you have to be
careful of but that's easy too, Intel works, Broadcom doesn't. Nobody
cares about WinModems anymore so that's a non-issue.

From: David R Brooks on 3 Apr 2008 14:29

General Schvantzkopf wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:42:45 -0400, Blattus Slafaly ‰ ⁜ ☺ ♞ wrote:
>
>> kid wrote:
>>> Can someone help me find a linux compatible motherboard? It needs to
>>> be
>>> amd x2 because I already have the processer.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance
>>>
>>>
>> Avoid onboard devices like built in ethernet, half modems, video, IrD,
>> bluetooth, WIFI and stuff like that. The motherboard drivers CD usually
>> don't have Linux drivers.
>> Get add on cards that Linux supports.
>
> This is absolutely wrong. Ethernet controllers all work out of the box as
> do virtually all graphics chips. WiFi is the only thing you have to be
> careful of but that's easy too, Intel works, Broadcom doesn't. Nobody
> cares about WinModems anymore so that's a non-issue.

OK, let's get specific here. My board seems unable to run the display in
1440x900 mode (it works fine under "another OS"). Here are the details:
Machine setup:
Centos 5 2.6.18-53.el5xen i686
Display: Viewsonic VA1912w 1440x900
Motherboard: Intel D946GZIS (integrated graphics)

System|Display|Hardware has monitor = generic LCD, 1440x900
chipset = Intel integrated i810, on
82946GZ/GL board

But System|Display|Settings|Resolution cannot be set > 1280x1024
This causes the display to blur, as the LCD tries to reformat to that
image size.

Here's the xorg.conf:
# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbVariant" "intl"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
Identifier "Monitor0"
ModelName "LCD Panel 1440x900"
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
HorizSync 31.5 - 100.0
VertRefresh 59.0 - 75.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "i810"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1440x900"
EndSubSection
EndSection

From: John Thompson on 3 Apr 2008 18:17

On 2008-04-03, David R Brooks <davebXXX(a)iinet.net.au> wrote:

> OK, let's get specific here. My board seems unable to run the display in
> 1440x900 mode (it works fine under "another OS"). Here are the details:
> Machine setup:
> Centos 5 2.6.18-53.el5xen i686
> Display: Viewsonic VA1912w 1440x900
> Motherboard: Intel D946GZIS (integrated graphics)
>
> System|Display|Hardware has monitor = generic LCD, 1440x900
> chipset = Intel integrated i810, on
> 82946GZ/GL board

Have you used the 915resolution utility?

http://www.geocities.com/stomljen/

"915resolution is a tool to modify the video BIOS of the 800 and 900
series Intel graphics chipsets. This includes the 830, 845G, 855G, and
865G chipsets, as well as 915G, 915GM, 945G, 946GZ, G965, and Q965
chipsets. This modification is neccessary to allow the display of
certain graphics resolutions for an Xorg or XFree86 graphics server."

--

John (john(a)os2.dhs.org)

From: Blattus Slafaly ‰ ⁜ ☺ ♞ on 3 Apr 2008 19:16

First | Prev | Next | Last
Pages: 1 2 3 4
Prev: Disk Drive Recommendations
Next: optical drives oddity ?