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Ask Slashdot: Linux on Mobos w/ Integrated Sound & Video.
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.
I use a Tiger PR-44FX MB with a Dual PPro200 Configuration. IT has onboard VGA (Matrox), Ethernet (Intel EtherExpress Pro), SCSI (Adaptec 7880), and 16-Bit Audio (Cyrstal Audio PnP CS4232). I run Kernel 2.2.2 and it works just great.
I didn't have much trouble setting it up either. The network, SCSI, and video worked with RedHat 5.2 Linux straight out of the box, and I simply followed the docs to setup the CS4232 sound modules with Kernel 2.2.2 and the audio works just fine.
I didn't have any trouble with this fine board, and I think I might just get another one of these when I buy my next Computer!
Good Luck!
If you wanted integrated and cheap get an iMac.
Seriously, if you want to drop the price, get a bare MB and a cheap sound and video card. I only paid $40 for my SB AWE32 and my video was free.
There would be no problem with the board. You should check and see if the video chipset and/or sound chipsets are supported. That is the big thing. If so, then you shouldn't have any problem getting it to work!
-Aaron Longfield
aaron@@technologist..com
The PCChips M571 isn't a bad integrated board.
Their other stuff kinda sucks, but we've had good luck with this board under Linux. The Video is supported under XFREE 3.3.3, and can be turned off via jumper, or by plugging in a video board, or both. Also, the sound is a CMI8330 which emulates a SB16 and MSS/WSS thing. It works for me, and 2.2.3 comes with a file describing how to get it to work easily. Fast, stable, and cheap. Make sure you use the 0902 BIOS otherwise the DMA is broke.
I would get a seperate mother board, video card and sound card. If you get all these built on to the mother board, and one goes bad, you've got to send away the whole mother board, not just the sound card or video card. I see it happen all the time with pre-fab computers.
Watch out for boards with the integrated Crystal sound chip. Finding support and drivers for these chips are a royal pain in the ass. Recommend getting ATI-rage chipset built-in if you do decide on integrated board.
However,
good cheap mobo: ~$100
cheap, functional video: ~$80
cheap, functional sound:
Riddle me this:
Good, cheap quality mobo: ~$100
Good, cheap video: ~$80
Good, cheap sound: ~$80
Plus, the mobo will have 2 ISA, 5 PCI, 1 AGP which will give you unbelievable expandibility. Move up to the P-III with BIOS upgrade, or ditch the mobo and get a Camino or K6/K7 mobo and reuse the same components.
Personally, I think building a modular system will help you in the long run. That way if something fails or you want to move on/up, you don't have to ditch much to move to what you want.
Out.
Your mileage will vary depending on what video chipset is embedded in the board. I helped a friend install linux on an E-Machines box, which has an ATI Rage IIC embedded in the MB. We had to download the very (!) latest ATI server from the XFree86 website to find a driver for it, but now it works very well. Unfortunately BeOS does not yet have a driver for this (although they have good ATI support) - maybe in 4.1?
:-)
On the other hand, another friend bought an all-in-one board (I forget the brand) with a SIS video chipset in it and we never got anything but a generic VGA server to work. Not very useful!
Intel has a board or two with their own video chipset in it - the i740, which as far as I can tell XFree86 does not support.
If I were buying a pre-made box I would go with an E-Machine. Just be warned that the modem is a WinModem which is useless with Linux. Still, add $50 for a new modem card and these boxes still can't be beat for the money.
If I were building my own I would be pretty tempted to put together a box from LsL labs (http://www.lsl.com/catalog/hardware). These use the ATI IIC, and they will pre-install Linux for you with the relevant drivers
Seperate components are better, since they're upgradable and replacable. But, integrated components can be cheaper. If you want integrated, just make sure that you're getting a real sound chipset that works with Linux (such as a good old Creative SB16 chipset). Ditto for the video chipset- don't buy a mainboard with onboard FijiMama VGA16 SuperLoveVideo ;). You'll feel silly if you have to disable your brand new hardware in BIOS and buy a card to replace it.
i have been running a couple boards with sb16 built in for some time now and Linux works fine.
I like the idea of a built in card for sound but
balk at video. I have changed video cards a zillion times (the prices have been dropping) and
would hate to have to replace a board to change video. While I don't require any fancy sound I do like to be able to upgrade video.
I want to install redhat and xfree on my box, but my gateway system(graduation gift) has a integrated mpact2 chipset video card http://www.mpact.com. Xfree's faq states they dont support it. Does anyone know of a server that does support mpact. I really want to install redhat and x server.
I inherited an NEC p233 with integrated video on
the m-board, and it had sound/modem on a funky pci
card that slid into the m-board. The video was
some cheap S3 thing, and Linux supported it, but
when I upgraded to a Creative (forget the name, the one with the 128mhz TNT) video card, it caused
major conflicts, and wouldn't even boot. There
was no way to disable the video on the m-board.
You're better off getting a seperate vid card,
or if you're going to be tight on PCI slots, at
least make sure you can disable video (and sound or whatever xtras it has integrated on it)...
Luckily i exchanged my Creative for a Diamond Viper 500 and had no problems.
Yeah, they wouldn't be too bad IF THEY WERE RELIABLE!!!
Spend the freaking extra money (20-30 bucks) and get a REAL motherboard, like an Asus, Abit, Epox, FIC, etc...
I used to work at a cheap-Iranian owned computer shop that ONLY sold PCCHIPS boards, and they SUCK!!!!! I swapped out 10-15 motherboards a DAY for a fairly small computer store... At the store I work now, we only sell name brand boards like the ones mentioned above. I only swap out 10-15 motherboards every 3-4 MONTHS!!! There are some serious issues with the reliability and longevity of these boards.
Out of the hundreds of ABIT motherboards we've sold, we have only sent back 2. 1 had a chipset issue with Intel, and the second a customer broke. Out of all the Asus boards, we haven't sent back 1.
Celeron 400 $ 158 www.atacom.com
Dual Cooling Fan $ 25 www.atacom.com
ASUS P2B Motherboard $ 127 www.atacom.com
IDE Hard Drive Cable $ 2 www.atacom.com
Enlight 7237 ATX 250W Mid Twr $ 60 www.atacom.com
CreaLabs SBS20 Speakers $ 21 www.atacom.com
Toshiba 32X CD-ROM $ 45 www.compuplus.com
Diamond SiS6326 8MB AGP Video $ 38 www.compuplus.com
Teac Floppy Disk $ 14 www.compuplus.com
Logitech 3 button PS/2 mouse $ 11 www.compuplus.com
Creative PCI Ensoniq Sound $ 21 www.compuplus.com
Mitsumi Keyboard $ 9 www.compuplus.com
IBM 14GXP 7200RPM IDE 10.1GB HD $ 239 www.MegaHaus.com (HD only dealer)
PC100 SDRAM 128MB RAM $ 158 www.pcboost.com (Memory only dealer)
-------------------------------------
Total $1221
This doesn't include shipping which quite expensive, I recommend buying a case locally.
I have a no-name board with a couple of common cheap video and sound chipsets - a bundled (but not onboard) SiS6326 AGP card, and integrated CMI8330 sound. It was a bit fiddly to get both working properly - at the time, the SiS card needed a SuSE X-server (subsequently integrated into XF86) and some trial and error editing of xf86config, while the CMI chip required isapnptools and a patch from a usenet posting to get CD audio to work. But now everything runs very well.
Re: Intel i740 - there's a Precision Insight (binary) X-server for this. See:
http://members.tripod.com/russmann/
for FAQs about this chipset and linux.
ive installed the latestest mandrake system on a pII intel jn all in one mother board (video, sound ,network)
it seems to run very nice. no real probs (video settings was about it took about 10 mins to fix)
the sound is a crystal sound card and works well in linux.
i dont seem to be having any probs that i know of
ps im using one at home to. the one at work si a dual bot to win98 rite now
I just don't see why people don't understand it. So ok, you save $100 by buying all-in-one board. But what are you gonna do later when you want to upgrade your machine? You'll have to buy CPU, motherboard *AND* video & sound. On the other hand I am still using my SB16 that I originally bought with my 486 over 3 years ago. Also, when I upgraded CPU & motherboard I didn't buy a new video card riht away - I kept using my 1Mb Trident, which was a PCI card for a while.
Same goes for those "integrated" SCSI and network cards. My advice is stay away from them. It's bad enough that they integrated IDE controller with motherboards and IE with Windows.
Linux 2.2 can use a serial console, so VGA not needed. Most BIOSes will boot without VGA, although you may have to configure them to do that, and they might beep a complaint at boot time. So you just slap in a cheap VGA card during installation and then remove it.
i have a built in soundcard on my mobo (chaintech BTA3) and it is noisy as all hell. Those things pickup alot of noise.
not as much as the shitty CD audio cable thats in there, but even with the cd audio muted there is noise. I ended up buying a soundblaster live
spend the extra money.
Sound Blaster Pro is 8-bit sound, however. I know, because when I first brought up Yggdrasil's first CD-ROM release of Linux back in 1993, it was with a CD-ROM drive attached to an 8-bit Sound Blaster Pro card. Was the above post in error? I cant see any modern vendor selling a system using a Sound Blaster Pro card in the late 1990s....
I have not upgraded the AV on my 3 yr old box.
If I wanted to upgrade, I wouldn't just upgrade one of the AV parts or the mobo. The way I see it, by the time you want to upgrade, all 3 pieces are pretty obsolete.
Beg to differ, I love most of asus' boards but they came out with an integrated soloution that really stinks. The Asus SP-97V is one of the biggest pieces of garbage.. The SiS chipset has pissed me off way too many times...
After figuring out I needed XFree 3.3.3+ X was no problem. :) Now if can figure out the blasted PnP sound card. (Ahh, Newbie-ism.)
Here is the bargain system I just built:
Soyo ATX MB (from Onsale.com) $22
200 Mhz Winchip $39
Cheap ATX case $39
64MB Dimm ~ $75
4GB IDE Disk ~ $100
2MB S3V video card $20
used soundblaster16 ISA $10
floppy drive $17
32X CD-ROM $40
----
$362
Damn this stuff is getting cheap!
They aren't even 100% PC compatible. Try going into your kernel config, under character devices, and enabling the RTC interrupt (I believe you have to under SMP systems, not that PCChips could even pull off creating an SMP MB). It doesn't work. It only works at the BIOS level, not the IO port level. Believe me I know. I debugged through my BIOS just to see why the hell my code didn't work, and guess what, it makes calls to undocumented ports. PCChips, in particular the VXPro chipset, suck huge gonoria infested dick.
They are the worst MB manufacturer, even tomshardware.com agrees.
According to Alan Cox the MediaGX has _very_ good Sound Blaster 16 emulation... he in fact uses it as a reference.
While i agree they are cheap and judging from your experience i won't argure their reliability, but i do have to point out that i got one for free (an m537??) has been running continuously for over two years with no problems. Ever 6 months i just turn it off and blow out the dust and that's about it. The only thing i don't like is it came without a ps/2 plug built in. Just a few pins sitting there and i have to go out and buy an adapter.
Stick with their Intel chipset line (they have _12_ listed models of P2 slot 1 boards based off of the 440BX chipset on their Taiwan site) and you'll be just fine.
IIRC they're really PC Chips motherboards so the QC isn't as good as some other brands. (E.G. DON'T buy them at Fry's who repackage and put returns right back on the shelf!!!)
The MediaGX implements a full Soundblaster (16, I think) emulation as part of the chip. It is apparently very good emulation, as Alan Cox uses the MediaGX, instead of a true soundblaster, to develop the soundblaster sound in the kernel.
Those are going rates for the Ensoniq-based PCI Creative cards, both quite good, although the 1370 boards give you much better sound quality.
Whatever you do don't buy the SB Live, because they give NO SPECS for Linux e.g. NO SUPPORT! But the Ensoniq boards work fine.
I have an ATX board with a crystal sound card.
OSS found it and set it up with no problem.
http://www.opensound.com
Flame me for using OSS, but it's nice and friendly; I'm willing to pay for that sometimes.
I've got slackware 3.5 on an Intel SE440BX motherboard, anyone else? I can't seem to get the sound configured. Currently running kernel 2.0.36, should i upgrade to 2.2.3?
Just use 'sndconfig --noprobe' for the on-MB Vibra-16 sound subsystem, set it up as a Sound Blaster-16. I have Vibra-16 on my MB, and it works this way.
I wanted a small machine for a router. I wrote up a web page on my research with some details on the box I actually bought.
The prices are a month out of date, and I have a raft of suggestions from people yet to incorporate.
Jay
Alton Boards blow. Get a real MB.
Some of the MB's use the SiS5597 video chip set and SUSE has an X server for that chip set (can be downloaded from their web site and used with any distro). As for the sound - I've only seen the HT 1869? Sound Pro chips used, linux can configure these as SB compatible.
Jeff Hunter
I work as a PC Tech.......... and we are currently using a BXPro board with an SIS6326 8mb Video and CMI8330 Sound. Both of these are intergrated into the board....... The Video card is supported by the latest XFree and the audio by OSS........ How does that sound? Even better..... these boards can overclock the Celeron 300a to 450 without any problems..........
staff@gigaboycomputers.com
614-471-8850 ask for ~rOy~
The SB Live is a great board where it's supported, but there are two problems.
1. It's not supported under Linux, and Creative isn't exactly in a hurry to remedy this.
2. It's not cheap. The value version is $100, about twice as much as a SB PCI64, which Linux does support.
The latest XFree86 (3.3.3.X) supports that chipset. I don't recall if it is integrated into the svga server or if it is in it's own server but a quick to www.xfree86.org should clear that up.
I picked up the cheap soundcard at a local store.
I scammed the video from work.
Do a Deja News search for my CMI-8330 Mini How-to. It's has step-by-step instructions on getting sound up and running with that particualar chipset.
Ken McCord
I've had a PCChips M535 (VX) board running Linux
for 2.5 years now, 24h/7d. It acts as a masq
gateway for my apartment, does C++ dev and
Quaking, and I can't remember how many oddball
cards it's had stuck in it over those years.
Never a problem.
Nevertheless, I actually agree that a MB is not
a good place to try to save money: when something
*does* go wrong you'll always be asking yourself
"is it that cheap MB...?"
It now has X11 support, had for a couple of xfree releases actuall
My Dell Dimension XPS H266 has PnP OPL3sa3/OPL4 on the mobo, and it works fine with linux. Although, with 2.0.36 (RH5.2) it worked with OSS/Free, but when I upgraded to 2.2.1 it seems to have broken something. The demo of the commercial OSS still works though.
I've gotten Linux & XFree working w/ both e-machines integrated Rage AGP and the MediaGX's from Microcenter.
So there...
Seriously, as long as their are drivers for the chipsets, it's not a big deal at all.
--Al
I know some people working on this. They are
putting *everything* on the motherboard, (memory, cpu). The resulting computer will cost ~$250 with a harddrive and a 3d accelerator (no monitor).
Blows away the sub-$1000 computers eh?
www.onlinepcoutlet.com has great prices on integrated soyo micro-atx boards. Much cheaper than Tiger. Tiger bites. And with the soyo's you can drop a K6-3-450 in there, if you want, or a K6-2-300, and get some inexpensive performance.
Anyone heard of motherboards with ethernet built in? I'm looking to make a cluster of linux boxes to do distributed processing and the only card I need right now is ethernet. It would help my form factor a lot if I cut this out. Any ideas?
Thanks,
jc@jonathanclark.com
Who cares. Replace the motherboard, for ~$60 and get everything upgraded... Replacing individual parts insn't going to be much cheaper and probably cost more in labor diagnosing the problem.
Actually, I have seen some 486 mobo's with PCI slots so its possible.
Where did you get the Mandrake all-in-one (video, sound, network) card?
I want to frame it and hang it on the wall as a network computer doing remote booting.
i am very glad u r running linoox
i b ha-p with linux 2day
u should get intgr8d mb
OK GRRLZ
CLIQ HERE
i am very glad u r running linoox
i b ha-p with linux 2day
u should get intgr8d mb
OK GRRLZ
CLIQ HERE
This SoundPRO's SPDIF may be terrible -- see
http://www.rockpark.com/soundcards/soundpro.htm
I have a PC that has a Microstar MSI 6147
mobo with ATI Rage Pro video (8MB)
and an ES1371 sound chip. Both video
and sound work fine. It's a Micro ATX
mobo with BX chipset. It costs about
170 at Micro-Express (check pricewatch)
The audio may be SoundBlaster compatible, but it's not that compatible. Tried the trick of booting into DOS, loading the sound card driver, then loadlin'ing Linux. No luck.
Someone said they had luck with OpenSound, so I'll try that next.
I couldn't agree more. A client bought 2 tigers before checking with us, and within 3 months both machines had died.
Don't know about roll-your-owns, but the onboard video that's on my Dell Optiplex 5150 works just fine, and I've seen other systems with onboard video work, too. Since most onboard video is made by companies like S3 and ATI, it seems to work pretty well. Onboard sound is something I don't know too much about, but I just thought I'd add my $.02-- or, rather, $.01-- about video.
That was the old ISA soundpro! ..) I use freedos and loadlin.. Works great.
The new one does S/PDIF great! You currently need to run a dos util before booting linux to get it to turn on SB emulation. (alan cox is working on a PCI-SB-EMU mode enabler for a simmlar card right now so
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???
BINGBINGBINGBINGBING! We have a winner, Johonny, tell him what he's won.
.. I need the Video present to boot, now if you can find me a motherboard with integrated sound & NIC that will POST without a video card, that'll work great too.
RightRight
Right, but you need the video present to POST with most systems.
I'm going to use an infra-red serial port to interface with his palm-pilot. There's not enough space on his dash to have a face plate there. I'm aware that linux can issue console information to a serial port, but I'm not totally sure if any modern motherboards come with an option POST without a video card.
I just purchased a all in one motherboard, with
a SiS video card and 64 mb or ram. The video card
uses the system ram, and there is a bios option
to allow you to change the amont used. My
problem is that im unable to run linux on the box
(Well i can, but it crashed more times in 24 hours then 2 years of dos/win 3.1 usage)
Could linux be trying to access video ram, or vice versa (since its not real video memory)
The errors range from segfaults (in every program) to being logged out, to kernel page faults with the new kernel, to even General protection faults
At the office there happened to be two retired Dell machines which my boss asked me to put Linux on. Red Hat recognized the onboard video and Ethernet chips without even asking me about them. The Ethernet chip was by 3Com ... I don't remember if it was detected as a 3C509 or 3C590. It simply told me about it and it worked by itself.
Ahhh, I think Tiger uses Soyo motherboards, at least for Socket 7 chips..
I just replaced a 486 running Linux with a PCChips M767V motherboard w/integrated video & sound.
I also used the SVGA server and it was kinda flakey, but I disabled acceleration in the XF86Config file (by uncommenting the "no acceleration" line) and it worked fine after that.
>>>
my X supports i740 which i have (with 8mb). a very nice gfx card too (and before anyone goes quake quake blah blah fps etc shit, i play Interactive Fiction thank you very much:) not quake;)
rehad have the i740 X drivers on their ftp site.
for libc5 + glibc.
I agree... For my main system, for home/business use, I get the best I can afford.
But for a second system, just for kicking around and learning Linux, where I can reformat the drive to try Slackware or Redhat or Debian or whatever and I don't care. A cheap integrated motherboard is more than sufficient.
I'm a hardware technician for a computer store
that does most of its business in extreme-low
end computers -- the kind that cost $400 new,
retail.
Here's a simple rule: If it's got stuff
integrated on the board, don't buy it.
Period. End of story.
Except maybe for integrated SCSI -- those boards
are pricey, have name-brands behind them, and
use generally well-supported chipsets.
Most boards I see use some variant of the
one manufactured by PC Chips ("PC 100") The
brand-names given to the boards vary (commonly
Top Gun, Alton, Amptron...), but I've seen them
in Socket-7 and Slot-1 configurations.
On-board sound for those will be a Crystal Media
chip -- a software driven solution much the same
as a winmodem. Video on these boards is a SiS
chipset.
Running XFree on one of these won't work very
well -- I couldn't get xfree started with anything
but a standard vga server.
Not only that, but these boards have a REALLY
lousy service record. Putting in a new video
card because the on-board failed is an annoying
pain, and to top it off, most of the boards I've
seen with integrated components don't have
as many expansion slots as a "normal" board
(typically 1 or 2 ISA and 2 or 3 PCI. I've never
seen a board with integrated video that had an
AGP slot).
Do yourself a favor: Even if you can't afford a
"good" video card or sound card, an S3 ViRGE
can cost as little as $15, and a low-end Opti or
ESS card can go for under $10. Spend the money
you would've spent on getting the integrated
board and buy decent parts later.
What are you??? Some kind of AOL fuckup???
i agree about the sp97v. i also have this board.
my thoughts on onboard video are: if you like the *general* (maybe its just the SiS on the sp97v)
decrease in performance over using an actual video card in exchange for the $$ or space.. then its probably worth it.. just dont use the asus sp97v. Theres a LOT of motherboards that have some built in S3 chipsets which are supported by X and svgalib very well.
My motherboard has onboard riva 128ZX and ensonique 1371 and it runs beautifully. I use the SVGA X Server and the es1371 module. I'm sure it runs the same as cards.
i have no experience with this..
but maybe try using either doseum or wine to run those configs to turn them on.. if the run under them.
I have two machines. One is an older 486 with a
Cirrus Logic SVGA card integrated, works like a
charm. Other is a nice new Tyan Thunder-something
with Yamaha OPL3/SA4 integrated, again, works like
a charm - initially with 4Front's sound driver, then
with standard OSS drivers. I think the point is
that what you have to watch for is the chipsets
involved. The fact that it's integrated is no
particular problem.
I sell Linux PCs based upon the MicroStar motherboards. They come with onboard ESS1371 and ATI Rage 8MB graphics and work very well with Linux.
The EX base motherboard uses a Yamaha XG chip for sound so the Celeron systems are not perfect.
For AMD and PII though these are great.
Jason Clifford
Definite Linux Systems
http://www.dlsl.demon.co.uk/
Can you force it to use 8? Mine says 4 on bootup, but X reports 2.
Does anybody have this working? How?
there are various good all-in-one Asus motherboard that will work with redhat5.2 right the way. Things like P2B-VM, P2B-N and P5A-B are good. Asus has a bad habit to use ATI rage Pro and Rage IIc chips for their display card and all-in-one motherboard. This may be good for linux user though, at least Rage.* chips has better support than the lousy SIS6326/6316/530/*.* If you can spend more you can choose P2B-N and buy the NLX together, then you can have a cool book-size linux workstation.(Maybe you can paint the case in black or deep purple)
l
http://www.asus.com.tw/Products/Netpc/index.htm
Save yourself some time and probably some money too by just buying a Diamond Rio and a nice fat juicy flash RAM card...
The Motherboard Superstore has Epox boards.
http://www.mssi.com/
I know several people who have ordered boards
(including Epox boards) from them and have had good experiences.
Mike Ossmann
no kidding. i dunno about video cards though.
probably about as cheap. FWIW i managed to get
a built-in sound card working under linux once
using that Open Sound System or whatever thing.
never got the video to do anything. really don't
bother, get the cheapest most compatible stuff you
can find.
you whore i just sent email to myself!
aaaaaargh.
Do you mean the alton M571 board with onboard sound and video? I am thinking about getting one of them, if anyone has gotten digital sound working tell me how hard is was and what they did.
Thanx
Check out this page of instructions:
http://www.best.com/~er iko/www/linux/SE440BX_sound_setup.html
I got RedHat 5.1 working on a SE440BX, but the newer BX2 board has a different codec that AFAIK is not supported yet.
erik
I am looking for something just like what he is describing, but most of the motherboards I see are for the newer Pentium2s, etc. Does anyone know of any place that is selling small integrated mobos (vid, sound) and supports the older Pentiums (socket 7)?
What boards / chipsets run dual K6-2s?
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
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
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...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
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?
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
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
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.
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.
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...
And it's still a sucky SB16. Go figure. If you had gotten an integrated motherboard, you'd have gotten better sound and video.
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.
NetBSD: the cathedral vs the bizzare.
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.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
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.
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 :).
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.
If its a "SoundPro" sound card it may never work right. I can get Linux to see the soundchip...BUT you need the DOS/Windoze software to just turn the INPUTs/OUTPUTS on! I can play sounds...just cant hear them
I have to return some videotapes...
Not always...They arnt top of the line but they work. I have a TXproII mobo. It's a socket7 with 1MegL2 cache,onboard Video,and sound. This plus a AMD 300Mhz 3dnow ran me about $125 about 4 or 5 months ago. Can you even get a INTEL CPU for $125?!?
I have to return some videotapes...
...I run Linux2.2.3 and Xfree86 3.3.3 one it and all is well. Older versions of X didnt support the SiS VGA chipset
I have to return some videotapes...
It says that the sound is Soundblaster pro compatible and the video is Ati Rage 3d IIc.
www.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
oogly boogly!
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.
.02.
...
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
Using 2.2.x will increase your chances of support
support gun control: take guns from cops
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?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
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.
-- Ted tsikora@powerusersbbs.com
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
*$69.99
-- Ted tsikora@powerusersbbs.com
I'm Looking to make a mp3 box for my brother's car, I just need something with onboard NIC & Sound, the video just needs to be there so it will boot. The size of the finished package is my primary convern. I don't want to wait to get my hands on the little empeg thingy to come out, he's leaving town in a few weeks.
Anyone know where I can find such a board?
Thankyah.
-- Hawk Newton
Computer Superfreak
I came. I saw. I coded.
Check out PC-Ware... :) yay
:)
They have all-in-one motherboards that work in linux!
MB-748MR Specs:
BX-Pro Chipset (up to P-III 500 or C400)
Jumperless Design
8 Megs AGP SIS-Chipset Video Onboard
SoundPRO 3D Onboard Sound w/ SPDIF IN&OUT!
56k Flex OnBoard Modem (havent tested this in linux yet)
AT Form Factor
3 DIMM - 1 ISA - 3 PCI
SuperIO wirh 2 Serial, 1 IR, PS2 Mouse, Parallel, and 2 USB
Onboard Hardware Monitoring
UltraDMA/33 Dual IDE Controller
Supports wake on lan and power management...
Cost: ~74$ 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... (i have a LOT of free time
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
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
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
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?
----------------------
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
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
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?
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
Serves me right for trying to surf and write messages at the same time
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.
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.
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.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
b
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.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
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=-
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -Gandhi
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.
"The code I write borders on black magic. Modify it at your own peril."
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
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
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...
RinkRat
They typically use soundblaster 32/16's for these... I dunno 'bout Linux tho.
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!
------ aBy5s ------
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.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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?"
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
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.
Bogus
"
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.
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
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 that has onboard sound, vdo & nic and you can get nlx cases from ic-direct.com, here's one.
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)
I used ALSA to get the sound going, following the directions here.
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.
/. They now seem to be popping up in all sorts of things now, and I was wondering about peoples success with them.
Iv'e been wondering about the MediaGX chips, there was some talk about them earlier on
Any takers?
John.
What MBs have integrated AGP video, sound (and maybe LAN) and support the AMD K6-3
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BlackNova Traders