Ask Slashdot: Linux-Friendly Motherboard Manufacturers?

dotancohen writes "I am tasked with building a few Linux machines for a small office. However, many the currently available motherboards seem to be Linux-hostile. For instance, in addition to the whole UEFI issue, my last install was a three-day affair due to the motherboard reporting a Linux-supported ethernet device (the common RTL8168) while it was actually using a GbE Ethernet device that does not work with the legacy drivers and didn't even work with a test Windows 7 install until the driver disk was installed. There are no current hardware compatibility lists for Debian or Ubuntu and I've received from Asus and Gigabyte the expected reply: No official Linux support, install Windows for best experience. I even turned to the two large local computer vendors, asking if they could provide Linux-compatible machines ready to go, but neither of them would be of any help. What globally-available motherboards or motherboard manufacturers can you recommend today?"

What?

[Alex Belits]

due to the motherboard reporting a Linux-supported ethernet device (the common RTL8168) while it was actually using a GbE Ethernet device that does not work with the legacy drivers and didn't even work with a test Windows 7 install until the driver disk was installed.

Model and manufacturer, please! Sounds like bullshit to me.

Re:Intel?

[Jmc23]

Back in 1996 it was extremely simple to search for motherboard reviews and compatability. It's now 2012 and the web is overrun with crappy sites and crappy reviews. Smart people would rather get direct answers from 'qualified' people then wade through piles of garbage, it's not like it's 1996!

Re:It's about components on the board

[h4rr4r]

You should really be getting intel NICs pretty much no matter what. Dell sells them as an additional cost for a reason. The reason being broadcom sucks.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[gradinaruvasile]

Also, look out for the audio codecs. Some dont work well with older kernels and ALSA. I have a Gigabyte F2A85X-D3H mobo with A8-5500 APU and i run Debian Testing on it. The stock 3.2 kernel gives an oops at startup and i have no sound. The 3.6 kernel however works just fine. And check the video drivers availability and stability if the board/CPU/APU has built in graphics. For example. Intel has the "best" open source driver support in theory. In practice, for the moment the latest Intel video card drivers are not good (the good stuff is in the latest dev versions and takes quite a bit of time until they trickle down in the stable kernels used by distributions).

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Smallpond]

Intel has stopped giving out information on memory management configuration like EDAC, and is pushing EFI BIOS control. If you want to own your PC instead of licensing it from Intel it's better to use an AMD processor. Intel NICs are still good though.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[dotancohen]

So just to clarify, you are not a "weaker man" because you are choosing a tool that is more difficult to acquire & has no official support... for what purpose again?

Pretty much for KDE and X mouse pasting. There are some mouse pasting solutions for Windows, but none are as good as X. Furthermore, I rely very heavily on many of KDE's small but useful features, such as Keep on Top functionality, the wonderful panel configuration, and some other small features. They add up.

Without knowing more about what the ultimate goal is, it seems like you are just being pig-headed & stubborn, pushing your own personal agenda / Windows vendetta over the priorities of The Company.

Not at all. Everyone already has a Windows computer and now that a new office is opening some people want to use the features that they see me using. This is a case of people wanting to use specific features that they cannot get on Windows, not of some fosstard pushing his ideology on others. Its not even about the cost or security of Windows.

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