Beware of Linux incompatibilities: a tale of hardware woe
I’ve learned an unfortunate lesson: if you’re building a new computer and you intend to put Linux on it, you really ought to make sure that the two are compatible. See, pretty much every new computer component is compatible with Windows by default, but the same is not true for Linux. The Windows drivers are generally written by the hardware company itself. These are essential if they want to sell it at all. But Linux drivers aren’t such a high priority, and frequently they end up being written by Linux developers who have to hack and reverse-engineer them together because the specifications aren’t open.
Thus my problem. The motherboard I bought, the GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard, is multiply incompatible with Linux. It uses a Jmicron SATA controller. I was able to find an experimental driver out there that seemed to work, but it’s not yet included in any of mainline Linux distributions or the mainline Linux kernel. I did find a modified Gentoo install CD that included the driver, so I was able to detect the hard drives, but then I ran into another problem: the network interface isn’t supported. D’oh! I still haven’t been able to get Linux working on this machine. I’m thinking I’ll try Ubuntu next; maybe I’ll have more luck.
But anyway, the lesson is this: when buying new hardware, make sure that everything is supported by the Linux distribution of your choice. I could have just as easily gone with a motherboard of similar price and feature set that was freaking currently compatible with Linux.
February 13th, 2007 at 18:21
I’ve built a few systems for GNU/Linux. I purchased them exclusively through Newegg.com. They have a wonderful menu system and wish list that makes it real easy building and modifying systems before you make the actual purchase. I use AMD cpu’s, 939’s (A2 are not as compatible with Linux). The key to finding a motherboard that will work with GNU/Linux is to read the user reviews. I only consider products that have more that a few reviews. I then search for the word “linux”. If I don’t find it then that product doesn’t get my consideration. Phoronix.com is also a good place to find reviews on GNU/Linux compatible hardware. It’s better to learn the easy way than the hard way. But either way is better than not learning at all.
February 13th, 2007 at 18:56
That’s great advice, and I wish I had seen it before I made my purchase (from NewEgg, of course). Also, thanks for the Phoronix link. I’ll check that out more.
Ah well, if worse comes to worst, I’ll just wait awhile until the drivers are ready. I already run two other Linux servers, so I’m not cut off from Linux entirely, just the nice desktop aspect of it.