On Friday 19 January 2001 03:19 pm, Homer Shimpsian wrote: > Can we discuss a good integrated motherboard solution for Linux? > > Preferably not Pentium III, something that has video, ps/2, USB and > works well under Linux. > > Modem, SCSI, and RAID hardware are nice to haves. Only decent RAID is SCSI hardware, both the drives and the controller. Not worth the bang for the buck on a home desktop system. Better solution is high rpm (=> 7200) and large buffer (>= 2mb) IDE, no RAID. There are no decent motherboards with integrated hardware...PERIOD. Onboard hardware/chipsets are by definition inferior, limited, and prone to lack of proper drivers. Most all cause a degradation, similar to AGP and software RAID kludges, by draining cpu/cache/ram resources. Unfortunately due to Uncle Billy's M$ arm twistin, many of the newest, formerly excellent motherboards, have at least integrated sound, no ISA slots, useless CRN slots, and the ability to disable APIC, AGPx?, USB, and ATA 66 or /100, which are all mostly M$ inspired and backed hype, has been removed from bios. Fortunately, some very talented high level programmers have made bios hacks availble on the Net to undo M$'s BS, and restore these options. "not Pentium III" implies > than. P4's aren't, so that leaves Athlons/Tbirds as the currently favored cpu's. Of the socket A boards currently available, the best now appear to be the Epox 8kta3 and Abit kt7a (in Abit's case, mostly 'cause they shun integrated crap). USB, never was any good. Remember the famous news conference, televised live, when Billy's newfangled type serial bus ... ended abruptly with a BSOD? Besides, it's already obsolete. USB2 (more M$ BS) and Firewire are the currently touted, unproven replacements. -- Tom Brinkman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Galveston Bay
