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Ask Slashdot: Linux on Mobos w/ Integrated Sound & Video. 184

Posted by Cliff from the cutting-a-few-corners dept.
Steven M. asks: "Does anyone have any experience with using Linux on PC's that have video and sound support built into the motherboard? One board that's caught my eye is the Tiger Micro-ATX Socket 7. That would mean I'd only need to get a floppy and hard drive, memory, and network card to hook it up to my current system, and a case to put them in. Saving a fair amount on my budget by dropping the need to buy seperate video and sound cards. I'm not looking to build a cutting edge system, just something decent on which to connect to the internet, and possibly learn some programming. Would this work? Or am I better off with a bare-bones Motherboard and seperate video and sound cards?" Is there an FAQ on this? I'm not aware of one and this topic would be important to sub-$500 PC crowd.
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Ask Slashdot: Linux on Mobos w/ Integrated Sound & Video. More

Ask Slashdot: Linux on Mobos w/ Integrated Sound & Video.

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  • If Linux supports the video and sound chipsets when they're on a card, there's no reason that having them integrated into the motherboard should be a problem. Most of those motherboard devices act like a normal PCI device anyway, it's just the form factor that's different.

    That said, I'd recommend against getting a board with the video and sound integrated. If you're not looking for something fancy, video and sound are about the cheapest parts of the computer. You can get something useable for either sound or video for under $20, and by getting them seperately, you preserve your upgrade path for later when you decide that what you really want is the $300 Super-Hyper-4D-Accelerated-Speed-Demon video card, or, conversely, when you later upgrade your motherboard, you don't have to replace your video and sound, too...
  • Normal people don't run Linux, either.
  • On-board sound is okay. Worst that can happen is that you need to buy the commercial OSS driver, which is what, $25? That's cheaper than buying a sound card.

    On-board video is another story altogether. A cheap video card can be had for around $25, while Accelerated X to drive an unsupported video card will set you back for $99.

    Go for the on-board sound, in other words, but stick with a cheap (but supported) video card for your video needs.

    -- E
  • This is what emachines says about the integrated sound. I think that the 4235 is pretty standard, and is 16 bit:


    Crystal 3D Sound Chip (CS4235)--The CS4235 is a single chip multimedia audio system. The CS4235 includes an integrated FM synthesizer and a Plug-and-Play interface. In addition, the CS4235 includes hardware master volume control pins as well as extensive power management and 3D sound technology. The CS4235 is compatible with the Microsoft Windows Sound System standard and will run software written to the Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro interfaces. The CS4235 is fully compliant with Microsoft PC97 and PC98 audio requirements.
  • Posted by Dr Stupid:

    I have an older motherboard (VX) which has an integrated Audio and Video card. I was able to install Red Hat 5.2 with automatic detection of both components. Unfortunately, I am still unable to get it to actually communicate with the audio card. So it is possible to get linux on, but, the real issue that I see is future problems. If you ever want to upgrade you mother board, you will have to buy a new video and sound card. The integrated solutions may be attractive in the short run, but, painful in the long run as I have discovered. Avoid it unless you really want to limit yourself.
  • Posted by Hank F.:

    Many of thee boards use the HRTF 3DsoundPro chip. It's SB compatable, but how can we take advantage of the 3D features in this chip? Anyone have specs, or a modified aumixer??

    H.
  • I'd stick with seperate components, simply because of failure - if something fails, you don't have to take out the whole system for a repair. You can also then get *exactly* what you want in your system, not what the motherboard manufacturer thinkgs you want.
  • Or Crystal...
  • The integrated sound on mobos is usually the equivalent of a $25 soundblaster 16, the most God awful soundcard you can possibly get. If it's cheaper to get that integrated than it would be seperately you're looking too high in the motherboard price range. These things are only good for about a year before standards change you know.

    As for integrated video, current CPU's incorporate most video acceleration on board the CPU. In the future, all video functions will be on board the CPU. Why do you want a motherboard with integrated video support when you know the future video-CPU will require a completely different motherboard?
  • There's a variant without the SCSI called a P2B-L. It's rather cheaper than the P2B-LS. The onboard ethernet is an EtherExpress Pro 10/100, IIRC.

    It runs Celerons too, BTW, but you may need a BIOS upgrade as Asus doesn't sell all that many P2B-L's. I haven't run Linux onnit, though.

  • See subject.
    --
    Grant Chair, Linux Int.
    VP, SVLUG
  • I've never used one, but I've heard that Cyrix has really been helpful in getting the video working (full support in XFree) and theoretically the sound works too. There's probably some wierd option that needs to be set somewhere, though. I'd imagine that 2.2 would give you the best support, plus OSS commercial or ALSA.
  • It's bad enough that they integrated IDE controller with motherboards

    Blame intel for the IDE integration... they make most of the IDE controller chips, and almost all of the first-generation motherboards are designed by intel. IDE has come a long way in the last couple years, but SCSI it's still not.

    what are you gonna do later when you want to upgrade your machine?

    Disable the onboard stuff, slap your new whizbang video card in, and be happy. Or else just slap your new whizbang video card in, and have _two_ heads on your machine, or _two_ soundcards, or _two_ whatevers...

    I am still using my SB16 that I originally bought with my 486 over 3 years ago.

    And it's still a sucky SB16. Go figure. If you had gotten an integrated motherboard, you'd have gotten better sound and video.

    Same goes for those "integrated" SCSI and network cards.

    I suppose you also think that all those manufacturers of real unix workstations are stupid dolts for integrating stuff like this on the motherboard. Duh. Thank god people like you never design real workstations.

  • with a SiS 6326 8MB AGP video board and a "3dsoundpro" sound card, cheap, and works.

    The video was a bitch to setup, but it *is* working now...
  • A ppro180/256 at the office has been running nice and cool at 233 on an asus mb for over a year. No glitches at all.

  • I've been very happy with the built-in cs4232 sound, 100baseTX ethernet, and ultra-wide SCSI on my pr440fx board.

    Video, however, is where I'd draw the line. Video stuff changes too fast these days and will probably be obsolete long before your motherboard will. For $30 you can get a cheapie S3 ViRgE card at a computer show and save yourself a lot of trouble.

  • Caelum (Score:1)

    by Caelum ( 2341 )
    I've put linux on one such machine, the sound is fine, the video kinda works but is flickery, I'm sure I missed some svga server option or it will get better. The thing to check is the video and sound chipsets and check if they are supported by OSS or Alsa and XFree.
  • I'm still running a VLB 256kB VGA video card from an old 386SX. Whether you need to upgrade your video card or not depends on what you're using it for I guess :).

  • Video? (Score:1)

    by mikpos ( 2397 )
    He was referring to the initial boot, not the OS boot. I've yet to have a BIOS which let me boot with a video card. You do get lots of cool beeping, though.
  • I have a couple of cyrix boxes with this on board sound. I haven't tried to get linux to use that device yet. I will say that it doesn't seem to interfere with the rest of the system if you don't enable it for whatever that's worth.

    I would just try compiling the kernel, moduling the sound and see what happens.

    Good luck.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • These are really a good deal for what you are looking for. A 300 Mhz K6-2 with 32 M of ram, 24x CD rom, 2.1 G HD, 56Kbps V.90 PCI Modem, etc etc, for $399. For a starter computer, it's great, IMHO.

    It says that the sound is Soundblaster pro compatible and the video is Ati Rage 3d IIc.

    www.e4me.com [e4me.com]


  • Yeah. What he said. As for sound, if you are not planning to use your system for anything that requires great sound (like sound editing on your PC) then this should be fine. Most of the time people use these small speakers anyways.

  • I got a 440BX board with intergrated SCSI (Ultra2Wide) 10/100BaseT and that's it. I would never get onboard Video. but I'm happy with my Viper V550, and Dual Voodoo2 12 in SLI

  • SiS? (Score:1)

    by Manuka ( 4415 )
    SuSE has an X server for the SiS chipset (integrated sound/video/PCI controller/bread slicer/toaster). I'm not sure about sound support, but I believe it's SB compatible. This is the chip that Asus uses on their NLX boards as an alternative to the Intel PCISet chips.

  • I have an intel board with an integrated Ensoniq chip which does work with linux 2.0.36 or greater.

    Find out what video/sound chips are on the motherboard.
    Personally, I would steer clear of generic stuff - stick with Asus for your mobo and you CANNT go wrong. Don'y skimp on such an important component. Just my .02.

    Using 2.2.x will increase your chances of support ...
  • And then there was a lunar eclipse during the second full moon of the month and it reverted to being a VESA local bus card?

  • The TigerDirect motherboards and cases are a great value. In fact they are Soyo Motherboards. Their top-of-the-line Super 7 is now the SY-5EMA+ picked as the best in the industry and their Pentium II iBX board is Soyo's best also. The best part is they are cheaper than anywhere else with strong support. As for sound it depends on the chipset. Setting it up is the same as you would a card that supports the same chipset.In your case you would need ESS support. I belive you would need the ES-137* drivers for this chip. Check the docs from the kernel. In any case there is always OSS/Free.
  • All TigerDirect Premium boards are made by Soyo Surprise!! Look closely at the second chip in the pictures. The topline Super 7 is the *SY-5EMA+ They use the same number too! Same with the Pentium II boards. Check catalog XKC-111 the latest! page 24
    *$69.99
  • I'm Looking to make a mp3 box for my brother's car, I just need something with onboard NIC & Sound, the video just needs to be there so it will boot. The size of the finished package is my primary convern. I don't want to wait to get my hands on the little empeg thingy to come out, he's leaving town in a few weeks.

    Anyone know where I can find such a board?

    Thankyah.

    -- Hawk Newton
    Computer Superfreak
  • Check out PC-Ware [pcware.com]...
    They have all-in-one motherboards that work in linux! :) yay

    MB-748MR Specs:

    BX-Pro Chipset (up to P-III 500 or C400)
    Jumperless Design
    8 Megs AGP SIS-Chipset Video Onboard
    SoundPRO 3D Onboard Sound w/ SPDIF IN&OUT!
    56k Flex OnBoard Modem (havent tested this in linux yet)
    AT Form Factor
    3 DIMM - 1 ISA - 3 PCI
    SuperIO wirh 2 Serial, 1 IR, PS2 Mouse, Parallel, and 2 USB
    Onboard Hardware Monitoring
    UltraDMA/33 Dual IDE Controller
    Supports wake on lan and power management...

    Cost: ~74$ EACH in boxes of 20

    Im running RedHat 5.2 on this board right now... In order to use the video in X i had to upgrade to the newest XFree (standard RPM upgrade from redhat's site) The SPDIF feature very nice...

    Check out my listings of MP3's at ARCTICNET.NET [arcticnet.net]... (i have a LOT of free time :)
  • Boy am I glad I threw out the TigerDirect catalog. I was wondering why they didn't offer a non-ATX super socket7 motherboard. I went instead to Computer Parts Only (www.cponly.com) where I previously bought a replacement MediaGX motherboard. Their prices were lower than Tiger on the same motherboards and they also sold better brands.

    They're a small outfit, but they really know what they're doing.

    I'm still looking for a dealer for Epox motherboards, though. I have one in a Pentium 2 computer that I'm very pleased with, even though it's only 66 MHz front-side. Bah.

    Kris

    Kriston J. Rehberg
    http://kriston.net/ [kriston.net]

  • I don't know about the shared memory thing, it appears to be enforced by the hardware. However, Linux really doesn't like the fact that these motherboards (esp. MediaGX) have uncommon video memory. For example, the two different MediaGX BIOS's I've dealt with let you change the amount of shared memory in use, but you only get to choose between 1.5 MB and 2.5 MB. Nowhere in XF86 are you able to set the memory to either of those values, so I think it's XF86's fault. Even the newer Debian that actually has MediaGX in its list of video cards can't handle MediaGX.

    I've moved these machines to server-land, which isn't such a bad idea because I don't have enough monitors, anyway.

    Sound/Video integrated motherboards are great for servers!! This is because they're super cheap and you don't have to waste a good video card on the server, or cripple it with a really slow ISA card, just to boot the stupid thing!

    Kris

    Kriston J. Rehberg
    http://kriston.net/ [kriston.net]

  • Just arrived in the mail yesterday! The first parts of my new computer-- and Intel PR440FX (Providence) MoBo, w/onboard sound (Crystal, I hope this doen't become a problem), 10/100 ethernet, and Adaptec 7880 SCSI. Oh yeah, it's a dual Socket 8 (PPro) board. Also got two 180Mhz PPro processors (with the 256k cache, hey, I'm not a millionaire!). The board's about $120, and the processors are $100-ish each. Everyone's so excited about the whoop-dee-doo pentium two and the whoop-dee-dee pentium three that ppro chips are cheap these days.

    This is a kick-ass board for clustering, due to the dual procs, builtin ethernet, and scsi. One of the first beowulf clusters used just about exactly the configuration I'm going for for their client nodes. I forget which one, but do a web search for "Intel PR440FX" and it'll probably come up.

    I can't wait to get some memory and a drive (and some misc. stuff), and fire this puppy up! Anyone else used this board for linux? Or have any recommendations for a HDD and video card?
    ----------------------

  • Look into the new NLX or LPX format motherboards and cases. They're available now, and they're great for just this type of use. You may have to add your own NIC, though, but I've found usable NICs for this purpose for as little as $10.

    This is the route I'm going with for my automotive MP3 player, assuming I don't run across a cheapo used integrated board soon. I don't know why I haven't had much luck finding one yet, they used to be dirt common, and nearly as cheap.

    You can find them on the internet shopping agent sites, but be sure that the chips used for the integrated features are supported by whatever OS you use.

    I've been extremely happy with IC-direct at www.ic-direct.com, but their server is dead right now. The case/mobo combo will add up to about $140-200 plus shipping.
  • I had a motherboard with onboard video and sound. The funny part was I was able to get the onboard sound working before all of my friends (we were all newbies, still are but we're learning) who had genuine Creative Labs cards. Back to the point onboard sound and video aren't necessarily bad. Just check the chipset of the video and audio and check the Linux installation. Off the wall chipsets won't be supported but usually companies use S3 for video and a Creative Labs or compatable for the audio. You should have no problems.

  • Not that ./ people arn't normal, but....

    How often do regular people upgrade there computers? Never, component by component. Whenever it gets old they either suffer through or cough up the money and get a new one.

    Sure compleatly integrated things make it hard to impossible to upgrade subsystems, but so what? Someone in the market for $1000PCs will get there 2-3years out of it then get another one.
  • I've just bought (for cheap) a dual PII M/B from Tyan... with onboard Sound/Video/SCSI. Does it work with Linux correctly? any experience concerning SCSI?
  • I helped a friend install linux on an E-Machines box, which has an ATI Rage IIC embedded in the MB. [...] Unfortunately BeOS does not yet have a driver for this (although they have good ATI support) - maybe in 4.1?


    The existing RagePro driver should support everything from the original Rage chip on up (though not the Rage 128). What was the exact configuration of the system that you tried this on, and what were the exact symptoms observed on failure?


    [shameless plug]

    altsoftware.com is perfectly willing to develop BeOS drivers for you; regrettably, we can't work for free, but rest assured that anything you contract from us will most definitely be worth the money. Our web page is at http://www.altsoftware.com.

    [/shameless plug]


    And don't blame me for the web page layout, as it's not my fault :).

  • Ack. "alt.software is perfectly willing to develop BeOS drivers (etc)".


    Serves me right for trying to surf and write messages at the same time :).

  • I'm Looking to make a mp3 box for my brother's car, I just need something with onboard NIC & Sound, the video just needs to be there so it will boot.


    Why is the video necessary to boot? It would be useful for selecting the MP3s to play, but AFAIK both Linux and BeOS will boot just fine without a video card.


    Keyboards, OTOH, can be a problem. The BIOS usually looks for one on startup, though I'm told that this can be disabled on some systems.


    A board designed for embedded applications might be your best bet, but good luck finding one under budget.

  • He was referring to the initial boot, not the OS boot. I've yet to have a BIOS which let me boot with a video card. You do get lots of cool beeping, though.


    I have yet to encounter this problem. I've booted my BeOS box without a video card on several occasions, and it works fine (though I have to telnet into it to do anything useful).


    For reference, the system that I'm using is a PII-266 with an Asus P2L97 motherboard.

  • Yea - I expected it to work and was surprised when it didn't. The E-Machine MB just has a plain old Rage Pro 3D IIC with 4 Megs of video ram. I installed BeOS R4 with no problems, but when it boots to the desktop it comes up on the generic (gray) server with an error message saying the video card is not supported. My guess is that the IIC is pretty new - in particular it is an embedded version of the (supported) Rage Pro II. It doesn't seem like it should make any difference to the driver, but maybe the BeOS looks for model numbers or something???


    System configuration noted, and I've passed on this bug report to my superiors.


    AFAIK the IIC isn't that new; it's certainly in the table of supported devices in the driver. However, this might indeed be a wierd variant. BeOS drivers check the vendor and device ID in PCI configuration space to identify the cards in the system. In principle, all IICs should have the same device ID (4756 hex), and so should be recognized. However, a wierd variant might have a different ID.


    If it isn't too much trouble, please run BeOS and check the device ID of the chip. This can be done by typing "poke" from the command line in a terminal window, and then "pci" to list all devices in PCI space. "quit" exits. Look for something with a vendor ID of "1002". The device ID *should* be "4756", but if it isn't, that would explain a few things.


    The serial number off of the chip and the make of the motherboard would be useful too, but don't go out of your way if it's too much trouble. The idea is that we'd have enough information to exactly pinpoint the cases in which the problem occurs.

  • The "Cheap for manufacturers" trend toward "integration" disturbs me to no end. Modular IS better. From a good supplier, buying decent separate mainboard, video card, and sound doesn't cost significantly more than an "integrated lump" mainboard, and saves you hassle and money later if any of the components go bad or get damaged, or
    if you just want to upgrade. A decent video card is cheap these days, as is decent sound. Separate components is just much easier, safer, quicker, and cheaper overall.
  • any motherboard that has integrated devices are crap.. 100% crap. save a bit more money and buy a slot1 board with a 333 PII chip. DO NOT buy anything that is integrated unless you like to waste money. why do you think it's cheaper? because the manufacturer knows it's crap.

    This is from my personal expierience, get a real soundblaster (AWE64) a real pci ne2000 card, and a nice supported video board, and avoid the wierd brand motherboards like the plague. the integrated stuff is good for win98 it's worthless for any real operating system.
  • the point is that for a few tiny dollars more you can get the real thing like an ASUS board or something else... saving 30-50 dollars on a integrated device is foolish. 99% of the time the integrated sound has to be turned off because linux will not use it, the video always sucks, and you have very few expansion slots. My point is save a bit more (Just a little bit) and get better.. Heck right now I can get a PII dual botherboard for $100.00 and PII333's for $99.00 each. grab a awe64 for $39.00 and a ATIExpert98 AGP for $69.00 and you have a linux/X machine that screams so fast your head explodes upon boot up. and these are prices at a local store... at a swap meet it's cheaper and mail order is too (although 90% of the mail order places are crooks and sell only broken items)
    (BTW: I did get that above list. and it does scream very well! now to get my SCSI IIIwide installed)
  • If you're going to buy a motherboard take the time to know the product. Don't just buy a unknown brand from a distributor. Make sure you know what make and model of motherboard you're picking up, and then check it on on the manufacturer's site and on Tom's Hardware pages. I've found that if the reseller doesn't tell you the brand it's usually because the product is low-piced but of inferior quality.

    I've personally found Asus and Tyan motherboards are worthy buys, and I've heard that Supermicro and Abit make some motherboards that are very good for overclocking.

    I would also agree with the person who suggested the modular component strategy. You can get cheap sound and video for about the same price on cards as they are on the board. That is a better long term move for most people.

    Good luck
    -OT
  • most integrated motherboards contain jumpers that will disable the built in video and audio modules.

  • Tiger (Score:1)

    by MikeFM ( 12491 )
    I hope to soon have a feature added to the Tiger web site to denote what operating systems parts work with. At first Windows 95/98, NT, Linux, and BeOS are likely to be icon'd. Hope this helps once it is added.
  • A local computer store had a cyrix MB/CPU combo with sound,video,usb,56k modem and tv out on it for $99. add memory, a HD, and CD and you've got a box. Can you say playstation? If sombody could make a real net-surfin, game playin, plug in to yer tv and go linux box I'd think it'd be a hit. I'd put my grandmother on KDE... : )

    -=nft=-
  • I've got one of the older $99 133MHZ MediaGX motherboards. It's all right. Not the greatest in the world. The sound quality sucks. However my parents wanted a cheap upgrade so I put a MediaGX 200MHZ into their systems and it has worked fine.

    Only using Windoze though. I only got my old faithful Intel P133 running Linux.
  • I recently bought a PcChips M747 Baby AT BX m/b with onboard SiS6326 8mb AGP and a Soundpro chip - despite some bad reports about this manufacturer the board is 100% stable - the onboard sound works a treat and the SiS AGP is supported by Xfree. My ONLY gripe is the fact that while I have an AGP video chip - I cant upgrade later to a different AGP card as there is no onboard slot, I can if course pop in a PCI card - and the sound can be disabled of course and another card used instead.. Watch out for this .. bottom line is - research it as much as possible - If you can afford it always get the best and Good Luck!
  • I've done this on a couple of Micron systems with the M55Hi+ motherboard. It's got the integrated SB16. I just configured ISAPNP, then recompiled the kernel with the settings that came out of /etc/isapnp.conf and it worked fine. I haven't worked on a system with video down, but I don't see why that should be any different than video on a card, as long as it's a supported chipset. You can email me if you want to know more...me@adsl12.bois.uswest.net

  • Your are probably fine on the video end with the latest X. Do not know about sound though.

    -- Bryan

  • I've done both. If you're looking at an MB with integrated video/sound/NIC, look at the chipset they're using and check if Linux supports it. If the kernel (or the X server in the case of video chipsets) supports the chipset, things should work fine.

    OTOH, the integrated stuff tends to be at the low end of the scale. Some boards are using moderately decent S3 video, but generally you'll find that for not much more you can get better performance and better quality output from add-in cards. Plus it's easier to replace the cards with newer hardware than it is to disable and replace the integrated stuff.

    Technically there shouldn't be any problems with integrated hardware if the basic chipsets are supported. If you're building a system where performance isn't a major issue in that area, integrated hardware might be a bit cheaper. If you need maximum performance and/or flexibility, skip the integrated stuff and go for seperate cards.

  • Of all things, the toshiba(fear) infinia(*fear*) series PC(stock with win9x... ugh) has an onboard ATI Rage II+/2MB video, and a really @#$#$ed up onboard 16 bit sound card. Runs linux allright, though, and ATI Rage II+ is supported and works (mostly) flawlessly. The sound card, however, is pretty screwed up... I threw in an old ISA 8 bit soundblaster, though, and it works tolerably...

    .ad.
  • Sure, Modular is better, but hey, the boards are cheap. I'm running Linux on a K6200 and a $60 motherboard with integrated sound that I don't have working. However, What's the loss, I can disable it and add a card...Although, I've never spent very much time on sound config, and it probably works, someone with a similar card posted saying it works...Anyhow, mine is a Eurone motherboard, I think they make matsonic too. I think it actually performs better than a lot of comparable machines. So, sure, modular is better, but for the price and the ability to disable it, you're really getting more out of it. BTW www.pricewatch.com is where to go for cheap hardware, I've never been let down.
  • As someone who has suffered with a SiS5597, I can tell you that the 3.3.3 and greater X's support them. *And*, and this is something of an important and, the claim of 4 or 8 megs of memory is misleading, at least for the 5597/8. They don't come with any sort of video RAM, they just share out the conventional RAM in your machine. 'Twas a nasty surprise...
  • They typically use soundblaster 32/16's for these... I dunno 'bout Linux tho.

  • Crap? (Score:1)

    by Rewp ( 16285 )
    I tend to disagree on the statements of most the viewers. I am an integrator for several fortune 500 companies. We use the Intel Juneau JN440BX motherboard. Its an NLX style MB with an ATI Rage PRO (4meg), Crystal audio sound card, and Intel EtherExpress PRO 10/100 card built on. I recently installed Redhat 5.2 on one of these systems and had no difficulties at all.. In fact i was rather impresed at the ease of installation and the overall performance of the board. For $700 with case, floppy, CD, 64mb RAM, HD, and pII 350 i think its a very good value. Plus from an integrators point of view the JN440BX is great because of a set life cycle. The Juneau is worth looking into.

    Course you could just view my opinnion as the ramblings of some idiot industrial engineer who is used to working with CompactPCI, VMEbus, ISA/PCI Passive backplanes that have all the components of the PC built onto one expansion card to leave up to 19 slots free for I/O.

    Anyway... You be the judge.

  • I have pretty much the same chip in my older model HP Pavilion. If you compile the kernel with MSS support, rather than OPL support, it will work. In fact, the 2.2.x kernels seem to have better support for this (through the MSS driver) than the 2.0.x kernels did. Now I just need to get midis playing decently.
  • I'm installing RHL5.2 onto my friend's k6-2 333, which is a (aargh) HP product. The model number is the 6350, and it has some sort of SiS video on board, as well as sound. I'm trying to find the right video driver in the RHL driver list (this is the first time i'm installing Linux btw), but there's no SiS in there :(
    Does anyone know where I can get this driver, or what it's called, and if its shipped with RHL5.2?
    email me at aby55@softcom.net if you can help me on this prob or RHL in general! need yer guys help! thanks alot!
  • We have a lot of redhat machines with this video chipset and we're having some problems when switching X->console->X. Some configuration problem I think?!? I would like if somebody could post the configuration of XF86Config file.

    Thanks!

    Alexandre
  • the thing to check for is the chipsets. if linux supports both the video and sound card chipsets, then you are golden. most motherboards that integrate the stuff onboard just tie them into the pci bus, so they look like pci devices to the OS.. I have a linux box running with onboard video (cirrus logic chipset) working just dandy. Check the chipsets and see if the kernel supports them.

  • What if you already have a full-featured PC, modular and all, and you're just looking for a sub-$500 to, say, run a Samba Server or do some C programming?

    Sometimes there are other reasons for buying "cheap" besides saving money on your *only* computer. Sometimes buying a second computer dedicated to a task (PPP/Firewall, for instance -- or maybe Samba server, or even load Solaris for Intel on it and use it as an NIS Server) that doesn't need to be full-featured or even expandable.

    Besides, I thought the question was "will this work," not "Is it a good idea?"
  • Such a beast does exist. I worked on one last week with built in ethernet based on an intel chip. However the FPOS wouldnt work under NT for some indecipherable reason. I dont know about linux support. I didnt want to find out, because after dealing with it for a while I got a case of 'not my box' syndrome. This motherboard sure seemed like it was make by the lowest bidder.

    Looking through my freebie ad-mag there is one board with onboard ethernet. Its the ASUS P2B-LS, which should be a pretty decent board (its not the same one that I worked on). Intel ethernet and adaptec SCSI, with a BX chipset. The only downer is the $370 pricetag. Good luck.
  • I've seen sound on the motherboard work, and generally its a SB 16 chip, so that's rather easy to get going...

    As for video, my personal opinion is a card is better. Video cards are dirt-cheap right now, you can pick up a S3 or ATI chipset for around $50 that works well with linux. If you do decide to get a video card on the board, make sure the chip is supported, and also make sure you can disable it if you decide to upgrade.
  • I have a Asus P5A (super socket 7) board.
    The board just cost 5$ more than the same
    version without onboard sound.
    The sound is a ESS-Solo hooked on the PCI bus.
    I use ALSA for sound, it works great.
  • "
    Disable the onboard stuff, slap your new whizbang video card in, and be happy. Or else just slap your new whizbang video card in, and have _two_ heads on your machine, or _two_ soundcards, or _two_ whatevers...
    "

    Actually, I have a friend with a Houston mobo with everything integrated. The sound is a CM8330 or something like that, which is at least half decent. The video is an SiS 6326 - I've had bad experiences with SiS in the past, but...

    The thing is, the SiS is an AGP chipset, but there's no AGP slot on the board. So if you wanted to replace the video card, you had to go PCI, which is slowly fading away...
  • What are you talking about? Granted, it depends on your definition of "good," but I know for a fact you can get:

    Good, cheap quality mobo: ~$70
    Good, cheap quality video: not sure
    Good, cheap quality sound: $20

    I bought a new SB 16 for my computer at work just a couple of months ago. It was $20 after shipping. And, of course, compatible with everything. Does it blow me away? No. Can I hear noise with it? Yes. =D

    I agree with you completely, though. Avoid integrated systems like the plague. A friend of mine has an integrated Acer, and it has kept him from upgrading much of anything (aside from memory and hard drive), because to change one thing he'd have to change the whole damn mess.

    --
  • You really can't count getting free hardware toward cost comparasions. I know the intergrated MB's I pickup for projects are $89. And you can't beat that price for a PC100 MB when buying the parts seperate..

    (If you can, I gotta find your source.

    --Nick
  • Pentium mmx and regular pentium systems based on LPX motherboards are being aged out of lots of office places now. They tend to be from Gateway and Compaq and have onboard sound, video, ethernet, and super IO. They're in beautiful little slimline cases with small power supplies (so you can have a big stack of these boxen on UPS and not kill the battery). They're like DEC Multias, except they don't suck.

    -Chris
  • My experience with the onboard boards has been dismal. Add in the idea that you can buy a bargain basement MB for 50-60$, add in a sb16 PnP for 20-30$ and an inexpensive 4 Meg video card for 40$. All of that together is about 130$ and that's a high estimate. You now know all of the stuff in your machine, can take it out at will, and if you add in a celeron 300A (60$) 64MB ram (100$) and case/power (80$) and you have a decent PC for 370$. OOPS! Add 30$ for keyboard and mouse and 20$ for a floppy. 420$. And the harddrive question boils down to size. I usually can find 2 gig hard drives for close to nothing. And 2 gig works fine for most of my linux installations. I think even with the purchase of a hard drive we have still come in at right about $500.

    */Anything is possible once it happens/*
    ~Jason Maggard
  • Thinking about it, a P2B-N type board with their Riva TNT implementation would be uber-cool.
  • I purchased one of these boards in order to upgrade my main box to a K6200 about a year ago and I would advise anyone else to avoid these kind of boards if at all possible. While I was able to get everything working, it was a lot more trouble than it would have been if I had assembled the parts separately. The biggest problems were I/O and IRQ conflicts that gave Win95 fits and resisted all attempts at ironing them out. Linux was pretty well able to simply ignore some of the conflicting hardware (I don't use sound or a mouse under Linux, but both are almost necesities under Win95) Linux, however, had some problems with the chipsets used for video and EIDE, which was an even bigger problem because I couln't get any information about what chipsets the manufacturer had used (no part number visible on the motherboard chips, no contact information for the manufacturer, no clues at the dealer).

    The only reason I used the integrated board was because I needed enough free ISA slots to accomodate some legacy hardware I use, and almost no boards these days support more than three ISA slots (and many only support three PCI slots as well: grrr!)

    On my next machine, however, I'm going to spend the money to get a reasonable number of expansion slots, or else get an integrated motherboard with proper documentation and contact information. (more likely, I'm not going to suffer through another Intel based Linux box)
  • Gigabyte have a mobo here [gigabyte.com.tw] that has onboard sound, vdo & nic and you can get nlx cases from ic-direct.com, here's one [ic-direct.com].
  • I used to work at a surplus electronics store (used computer stuff). We had a lot of people coming in with proprietary motherboards (Pac Bell mostly) which had lost some function, such as video, or sound. The problem with integrated boards is that when something breaks, you can't fix it (replace the broken board or card) they are also harder to troubleshoot if there is a problem. If you really don't need a whizzo, top o' the line system, you can put something together for relatively cheap. I built a system for my mother out of scrap. Keep an eye out for good deals, if you don't have to do it all in a weekend, you could do it for really cheap.
  • If you're buying a PC for a dedicated task (i.e., throw it in a corner and forget it's there) what do you need with video and sound at all?

    After the inital setup, you shouldn't even *need* to have a video card in there at all. (some boards won't boot without it though)
  • My Dell Optiplex GX1 with integrated sound and video works just fine. It has a 440BX motherboard with an ATI XPert@Work video card, and a cs4232 sound card built in.

    I used ALSA to get the sound going, following the directions here [best.com].

    It also has a Voodoo2 for Quaking. :)

  • My experience with motherboards that have sound and video built in has been that the video is generally horrible to deal with - some motherboards don't like it if you go set your video RAM to 4MB and won't boot. You could always turn off your on-board video, but then you paid good money for the thing. Seems like a waste of time to me.. sound and and video should be kept on cards where they belong.
  • If you're just looking for basic video/audio you can easily get down to $30 a card... my local computer parts store is asking just that amount for a 4mb S3 Virge / soundblaster 16, both of which are nicely supported under Linux
  • If you just want to use it for Web crawling and programming, don't get an integrated system. Integrated systems just make it that much more expensive to upgrade later. (Which you *will* want do do if you program much...)

    Unless you're planning on doing crazy VR stuff or buying a 50" monitor (both of which remove you from the bargain category), today's mid-range video and sound cards are about as good as you'll ever need. Buy them once and recycle them through a series of faster motherboards and chips.

    This thread is probably of more relevance to Linux on laptops than for the sub $500 PC.
  • Does anyone know where to get the Intel PR440FX's? I can't find a vendor who sells them.
    If you know, it'd be great if you could email me, too (deephand@remus.rutgers.edu)
    Thanks...
  • Have a look at the CMI8330 link above... this is the chipset you are talking about, and the version of the file they describe that I have, headed :

    CMI8330 Mini-HOWTO
    Version 0.05
    February 13, 1999
    Author: Ken McCord (ken.mccord@usa.net)

    describes how to use 3D. I am trying it out now... I won't include the file here, as I don't own it.
  • I use Redhat 5.2, and Have a Toshiba Somethingorother. Its got onboard sound and video. The video is S3Virge and the sound is Yamaha OPL(3?). Video drivers under Redhat are fine, and I just got sound working the other day *without* re-compiling the kernel.

    I would't recommend that you get an integrated motherboard on a whim like I did. (I got lucky) But chipset support is getting much better, so if you do your homework, you should be able to get a motherboard with supported, integrated sound/video.

    PS: x11amp ROX! Streaming mp3 was the only reason I bothered with sound in the first place. :]
  • Here on the Ghost Planet we prefer to use mobos with seperate cards. We find you can get older cards cheap, new or used, that are fully supported. And this gives you built-in flexibility - you can always upgrade the card in case you want better functionality in an area. Also, if you decide to do this with an all-in-one mobo you may find (as many have) that it is dificult if not impossible to disable the on-board feature. There are better ways to save money - a used pentium isnt that expensive. The desire to conserve funds is well understood, but dont be penny wise and feature foolish...
  • It works. For the last couble of years I have used an Intel Advanced AS MB with built in Crystal sound and ATI Mach 64 video. It has worked well for both Linux and that other OS that starts with a W
  • I run a MediaGX 180MHz just fine with Linux. The sound is not supported yet to my knowledge, but I haven't checked in several weeks. I run a separate video card because the GX only has 2MB of video ram, and I have a Millenium II 8MB card. XFree86 3.3.3 is supposed to support the GX, but I haven't tried that yet either. This system runs Linux very well and I have never had any problems that I didn't personally cause (hey, ya' gotta break it a few times to find out the big no no's).
  • Especially their mobos! Their supports sucks ass, if you can even get through to talk to them...they don't even know the exact specs on all of their products.
    Back when I was not as wise as I am am now, I purchased a Tiger-Super7 barebones kit. Here's the website of the company that made the included mobo: http://www.visiontop.com.tw
    Needless to say, I'm not going to get any BIOS updates =-(
    My advice: get a brand-name mobo with nothing onboard. It's more expensive, but a much better value in the end. Your system will last 2-3 times as long.
  • Maybe they're not that bad then if they're using Soyo boards now...I still don't like integrated sound/video though.
  • >Can you even get a INTEL CPU for $125?!?

    Uhhh...yeah. A 450MHz one for 75$ (300A guaranteed to run at 450MHz!).
  • How about the m571? I'm trying to get the 4 megs of video running and I can't figure it out.. Anyone had any success with a particular Xserver?
    Silicon Integrated Systems, the maker of the video chip, certainly isn't much help..
  • Mostly, these boards use off-the shelf video and audio components, just like laptop systems.

    Sheck the specs on the board to find out what chipset the audio and video are running. Chances are the video is an S3 derivative, and the audio is an ESS 1688 (I think) which is a SB clone. For that, read the docs in your kernel source files. There's explicit instructions on the settings for the hardware.
  • or just the plain old 6x86 stuff.

    Iv'e been wondering about the MediaGX chips, there was some talk about them earlier on /. They now seem to be popping up in all sorts of things now, and I was wondering about peoples success with them.

    Any takers?
    John.
  • What MBs have integrated AGP video, sound (and maybe LAN) and support the AMD K6-3
    -

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