[NMLUG] Asus M2V not for Linux

[nickf at nickorama.com (Nick Frost)]

Steve Browne wrote:
>
> I hope this saves some of you from wasting money. I'm curious to know
> what (recent) CPUs/motherboards you IT professionals are using.

Hi Steve;

Interesting post.  I understand your stated need to use Via chipsets for 
compatibility reasons.  However, I have found the NForce 3 and NForce 4 
chipsets to be preferable in most instances for building Linux 
workstations and NIS clients (Linux).

Recently I built two systems based on the MSI K8NGM2-FID mainboard 
(micro ATX, Socket 939).

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=1803985

I tested the K8NGM2-FID under Ubuntu and Gentoo Linux. The NVidia NForce 
430 seems reasonably well supported, as does the Nvidia GeForce 6150 
integrated GPU.  The downloaded Nvidia driver for the Vitesse VSC8201 
NIC worked fine under Gentoo, but Ubuntu uses a different version of GCC 
for the installed kernel than for the installed compiler on the system, 
so I abandoned Ubuntu as a distro for this system for that reason; 
though it would be simple enough to put an Intel Pro 100/1000 NIC in a 
PCI slot to circumvent this limitation.

The Nvidia NForce 430 works well with Windows XP, one of the two 
machines built runs Windows XP Professional, and after driver 
installation the Device Manager looked fine and there were no noted 
hardware/driver issues for Windows XP Pro.

I have little experience with the AM2 platform, I am in the process of 
building an AM2 workstation (for Gentoo Linux) based around a Gigabyte 
GA-M55Plus-S3G mainboard.  The system will not post and I am awaiting 
new memory, as I suspect the problem is due to either incompatible 
memory or a bad mainboard.


-Nick
        _      _     __
  _ __ (_) ___| | __/ _|
| '_ \| |/ __| |/ / |_
| | | | | (__|   <|  _|
|_| |_|_|\___|_|\_\_|
Nicholas S. Frost
7 Avenida Vista Grande #325
Santa Fe, NM  87508
----------------------------