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Ask Slashdot: Linux-Friendly Desktop x86 Motherboard Manufacturers?
storkus writes: The release of Haswell-E and a price drop on Devil's Canyon has made me itch for a PC upgrade. However, looking around I discovered a pair of horror stories on Phoronix about the difficulties of using Linux on a multitude of motherboards. My question: if MSI, Gigabyte, Asus (and by extension Asrock) are out, who's left and are they any good? I'd like to build a (probably dual-boot, but don't know for sure) gaming and 'other' high-end machine with one of the above chips, so we're talking Z97 or X99; however, these stories seem to point to the problems being Windows-isms in the BIOS/UEFI structures rather than actual hardware incompatibility, combined with a lousy attitude (despite the Steam Linux distro being under development).
They're about as vanilla as it's possible to get, which is what you have to do to get anything working with minimal kernel module hacking.
MSI X99 boards at least claim SteamOS compatibility out of the box.
In my books that should mean Linux works.
Some archive apps like WinRAR can extract files from self-extracting EXE files. Also look around for other softwares that can do this.
In some cases a command line option will allow the EXE to be extracted but not installed - but you have to do some digging.
Of course - the above is provided that you have at least one Windows machine around.
Also check around on the Motherboard manufacturer site - sometimes they offer both an EXE and a ZIP archive, and if nothing else contact their support. If nobody pesters them about the problem then they don't care.
And finally - also look at Tyan and Supermicro for motherboard, even though their target is server motherboards they may have some suitable motherboards for you.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Is setting a bunch of flags really a horror story? Really? How is this possible if you are BUILDING a computer?
But I have built many of Linux systems on AMD/Asus platform. Not sure about the Intel stuff. But rarely have had any issues. YMMV.
I've built about 9 computers in the past 4 years and have run various flavors of Linux on all of them (mostly LTS builds of Ubuntu), and I've never had compatibility problems with the motherboard. Nowadays nobody can really afford not to support Linux, so I think the important thing is to wait a little while for the chipset drivers to get integrated into the newest builds of the Linux kernel, and then go from there. I've had issues with USB 3.0 support for an older CentOS version, but overall everything works for the most part. Linux even works better out of the box than a clean install of Windows 7 sometimes, because Win7 doesn't have drivers for a lot of common NICs, whereas Linux usually did. As you mentioned, in the latest computers I've built, the UEFI did give me more problems than traditional BIOS, but they weren't show-stoppers by any means, just a google search away from a resolution.
I've built three boxes with MSI A75a-e35 and AMD A-8 and A-10 with no issues running Linux Mint 15/16/17, well except two of the boards had issues after 6 months. The replecement boards are working fine though.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Intel is closing down their motherboard lines. It pisses me off since they were all I'd buy in the past, but they aren't going to be an option for much longer :(.
And you think with the low margins the manufacturers have these days, they can do without that share?
Unfortunely, yes. No major motherboard manufacturer even cares about niche market. And the IC manufacturers, they don't really care, either.
Also people using desktop Linux are typically in the higher income levels and can not only pay for quality
Higher income buyers are buying trendy Apple, Andoid tablets and Microsoft laptops, not linux workstations.
they can recognize it, unlike the sheep
No, they just don't care about that. But you do get the smugness of the illusion that the manufacturer uses fairy dust instead of building it like everyone else.
Wolves are always a minority.
Now, you're just assuming stuff. I'd say wolves are quite the majority of animals in wolfpacks, and the major ingredient in wolf stoo.
What you are also completely forgetting is that a lot of these will actually run as servers. You know, because Linux does well as server
Who is using COTS desktop boards on servers? Traditionally, Intel desktop cpu lines do not support ECC memory. And you talk like there is no option for servers besides Linux.
You know, because Linux does well as server, quite unlike Windows
I assume you speak from experience. I'd blame it on the sysadmin, not the operating system.
But you would not know or understand that.
Get out of the basement sometimes. Try to vent out at least some of that frustration of yours.
I just upgraded to an i5 with a GA-Z87X-D3H mobo. I've got it triple-booting (GRUB has LinuxMint 17 or Windows Loader). If I select Windows, then the windows loader gives me the option of XP-32bit or windows 7-64bit. I can attest to the fact that it is the UEFI crap in the BIOS that causes issues, but once you turn it off, all the problems disappear. All in all, money well spent and I'm quite content
As always, YMMV
Good luck
Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity!
Have been using ASUS boards for linux-only computers for years, without any compatibility problems. BIOS updates come as a ZIP file that extracts into a BIN file that you can install from the BIOS itself: just download and extract the file to a USB drive from your favorite OS, then boot into the BIOS and perform the update, rebooot and all done.
Reply to myself - Buy this - Gigabyte G1-SNIPER-M5 - it is the most stupidly over the top motherboard (it even has green bits) with all the latest fandangly bits and it works out of the box with linux.
Ok, Ill feed the troll....
Niche market share of Linux desktop systems is (using the lowest percentage of 1.68%) is between 24,000,000 and 58,000,000 systems depending on whos numbers you use for the total number of systems. (Not even going into the fact that the % of share is a guess and ranges between 1.68% and 24% depending on who you look at)
It is estimated that around 90% of those users build there own systems.
Although the market share is small, the numbers are big and to some companies well worth the investment to try to capture some of that share.
Yeah, except for how BIOS still uses 30 year old concepts for bootstrapping the machine, which don't even apply to today's hardware. Oh, and coming up in programmed IO mode until your OS loads the storage driver allowing for a disk transfer rate that isn't 30 years old. Or any of the other massive improvements that have nothing to do with SecureBoot, which you can turn off on any EFI system that supports it.