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Ask Slashdot: Linux-Friendly Desktop x86 Motherboard Manufacturers?

Posted by Soulskill on from the roll-your-own dept.

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).

10 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. MSI Claims SteamOS compatibility with X99 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    MSI X99 boards at least claim SteamOS compatibility out of the box.

    In my books that should mean Linux works.

    1. Re:MSI Claims SteamOS compatibility with X99 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Also looked at their BIOS Files. Looks like normal ZIP which contains the file that needs to be put to the pen driver for the UEFI self-update to work from the BIOS itself. No Windows required.

  3. Self-extracting EXEs by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Self-extracting EXEs by graphius · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I agree with your post, but I am a bit concerned that your accounting skills need some work...

      LibreOffice does about 98 percent of what I need to service my clients, but that last five percent has to be handled, too

  4. Sensationalism? by passionplay · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is setting a bunch of flags really a horror story? Really? How is this possible if you are BUILDING a computer?

    1. Re:Sensationalism? by storkus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Because a few things were yanked out of my submission, as usual for headlines. As shown in the Phoronix stories, and (here's one part that was deleted) by Googling around further, a bigger problem is that the mobo manufacturers simply don't give a flying f**k about anything other than winblows: Gigabyte and Asus both say, "We don't support Linux, use windows"--yes, really, read the story--and there was some MSI business before, but maybe that's getting better since they offer official Steam support (we'll see).

      I didn't know AsRock and AsusTek were separate companies now: perhaps their new X99-WS, while not an overclocker, is better supported as many workstations run Linux or Solaris.

      I'm surprised so many guys didn't know Intel isn't making boards anymore, but I didn't know they're (apparently?) still available. Whether with Z97 or X99 (or later) is a big question, though.

      Also deleted from my submission is that I specifically stated that I don't expect all the hardware to work on something so new, but I expect the important parts will: rather, that the M$-isms in the BIOS deliberately interfere with Linux. I'm very familiar with this, as I have a 7 year old laptop that, to this day, I cannot install any of the BSD's to: first the bootloaders died, and now the kernels die in early boot, so it's a little better, but still. Oh, and it likes LILO better than GRUB.

      So, is this sensationalistic? No, I don't think so. And I haven't been paid for any of this (in fact, I'm going to max out a credit card or two to pay for this). But I really don't want to repeat all the pain others have gone through. This isn't my first build, and definitely not my first Linux install, but this is the newest hardware that I've used in almost 2 decades. (Usually I just take hand-me-downs on the cheap--as usual, what works like shit in winblows works fine in Linux!) I want a machine for gaming, compiling, GIMPing, etc--for once, I'd like some top end screaming hardware (since I'll never be able to afford Haswell-EX with its 20 cores!). The last thing I need is the manufacturers themselves deliberately creating road blocks!

  5. Just wait a little by etherelithic · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  6. Sadly, they are getting out of the business by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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 :(.

  7. Re:Sucks but... by rev0lt · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.