CentOS - Jul 2009 - modern motherboard for centos-5

I'm considering upgrading, and am trying to choose a modern motherboard
that nevertheless fully works with Centos5/RHEL5.

Though I'm partial to AMD processors, and would like to use one in my
new configuration, that's not a requirement, if the most appropriate
board happens to be intel-compatible. 

However, given the way ASUS is dumping LInux and crawling more firmly
into bed with the Beast, I'd prefer to avoid ASUS boards.

I see that NewEgg has some combo deals at reasonable prices, but I
can't tell which chipsets/boards are known to work with centos5 and
which aren't.

Just at random, here's one of their offerings, a Biostar board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138143
I've always understood Biostar boards to be cheap, not only in price,
but perhaps they're serviceable? 

I'm open to other suggestions, too.

Thanks in advance!

-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us
-----------------------------
                    The Lord detests the way of the wicked 
                  but he loves those who pursue righteousness.
----------------------------- Proverbs 15:9 (niv) -----------------------------
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fred smith wrote:
> I'm considering upgrading, and am trying to choose a modern motherboard
> that nevertheless fully works with Centos5/RHEL5.
What role is that system going to play?

I assume server because I'd put money down that in excess of
99% of CentOS installations are servers. (that number
started at 95% and I kept jacking it up higher the more
I thought about it..)

In which case..

Supermicro has a pretty large selection of Istanbul-ready
boards, you don't really mention any special requirements
outside of OS compatibility so it's hard to say what board
is best:

http://www.supermicro.com/Istanbul/Istanbul.cfm?pg=MB

Pretty much all of them should work fine with CentOS 5, of course
I would avoid the on board controllers for disks, use an external
controller like a 3Ware or something mainly for performance
reasons.

Tyan has plenty of good boards too.

nate

Well, despite what you say about ASUS, I recently bought an M3N78-VM
(http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152752 - although the net card specs are wrong)
because it was cheap and it supported 8gb. The only problem was the lack for
forcedeth drivers in standard CentOS, which I download from somewhere else. I
can't speak for graphics or sound because the machine uses neither.

It's running Xen kernel from the Gitco repositories and it's rock solid
(touch wood).






________________________________
From: fred smith <fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us>
To: centos at centos.org
Sent: Saturday, 4 July, 2009 15:39:26
Subject: [CentOS] modern motherboard for centos-5

I'm considering upgrading, and am trying to choose a modern motherboard
that nevertheless fully works with Centos5/RHEL5.

Though I'm partial to AMD processors, and would like to use one in my
new configuration, that's not a requirement, if the most appropriate
board happens to be intel-compatible. 

However, given the way ASUS is dumping LInux and crawling more firmly
into bed with the Beast, I'd prefer to avoid ASUS boards.

I see that NewEgg has some combo deals at reasonable prices, but I
can't tell which chipsets/boards are known to work with centos5 and
which aren't.

Just at random, here's one of their offerings, a Biostar board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138143
I've always understood Biostar boards to be cheap, not only in price,
but perhaps they're serviceable? 

I'm open to other suggestions, too.

Thanks in advance!

-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us
-----------------------------
                    The Lord detests the way of the wicked 
                  but he loves those who pursue righteousness.
----------------------------- Proverbs 15:9 (niv) -----------------------------



      
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fred smith wrote:
> I'm considering upgrading, and am trying to choose a modern motherboard
> that nevertheless fully works with Centos5/RHEL5.
>
> Though I'm partial to AMD processors, and would like to use one in my
> new configuration, that's not a requirement, if the most appropriate
> board happens to be intel-compatible. 
>   
Personally, for consumer  grade motherboard, I prefer to use Gigabyte or 
MSI.
Between those two, MSI is more USB boot friendly. I boot many 
implementations with USB SysLinux without problem with MSI, but 
problematic with Gigabyte.

For AMD, I recommend to get any with AMD 780G chipset, the reasons are :
a. already has built in low entry 3D capable graphic unit, and has DVI 
output in case you want to use them with large LCD screen
b. the SATA chipset brought by the AMD SB700 or SB750 is compatible with 
VMWare ESX 4.0i, thus can be made as local VMFS storage. My CentOs is 
always above VMware ESX now.
> However, given the way ASUS is dumping LInux and crawling more firmly
> into bed with the Beast, I'd prefer to avoid ASUS boards.
>   
Long time never used the Asus board anymore, thus cannot comment.
> I see that NewEgg has some combo deals at reasonable prices, but I
> can't tell which chipsets/boards are known to work with centos5 and
> which aren't.
>
> Just at random, here's one of their offerings, a Biostar board:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138143
> I've always understood Biostar boards to be cheap, not only in price,
> but perhaps they're serviceable? 
I have some cheap BioStar motherboards. Works well, and suitable for 
lower price desktop built for my friends. All of the running Ubuntu 
Linux. However none of them running 24x7 thus cannot recommend whether 
it is suitable for your email server requirements. The oldest possibly 
about 2 years old. If I recall, I never had any motherboard problem 
since 2001 and I only used Gigabyte-MSI-Biostar-Palit. Yes, there are 
some old motherboards who were dead after never been used, but usually 
they are > 4 years old and becoming rusty after I put them in the store 
room (very humid here in Singapore).