[conspire] question on Biostar P4M890-M7

[David Fox]

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 6:42 AM, K Sandoval <indigo.kai at gmail.com> wrote:
> Re: question on Biostar P4M890-M7

>  Intel BOXDG31PR LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
>  http://www.bigboxlinux.com/product_p/mb-intel-dg31pr.htm
>
>  seems to be a better choice...

Possibly. I'm a fan of ASUS motherboards, since that's pretty much all
I've used, although that's so far a statistically insignificant
sample. But others have recommended Asus as well.

What you might want to do is look up the main component features that
are on that particular board with an eye to Linux capabilities and see
how much experience (and if any problems) surface. For instance, will
the Realtek chipset work? What about the networking? More likely than
not, newer kernels will support them, but it's safest to check things
out first.


>
>  According to the Hardware4Linux site I don't think there shouldn't be
>  any problems with the on-board chipset: Intel G31 Express / Intel ICH7
>  http://hardware4linux.info/system/1709/
>
>  I found this site also and it talks about running Linux on a mobo with
>  theNorth Bridge: Intel P31 Express Chipset with the South Bridge:
>  Intel ICH7.

It seems you're wanting to get more documentation on the chipsets used
in the first motherboard, yet this site and the one following it are
for different motherboards (the first being a Gigabyte). Gigabyte
motherboards aren't bad either, and since they support quad- and
dual-core Intel processors (775 type socket) then you've got an
upgrade path that should last you for a while (4 gigs of RAM support
as well) since you can simply (or should[1[) replace the CPU with a
dual core when the Celeron you have becomes too slow for your needs.

[1] so far in my computing experience, it seems I have to buy new ram
along with new cpu and motherboard every time I upgrade :). But then
again, my PC-133 memory is not fast enough to support the newer CPUs.
>  Or will the fact that the Processor and other minor bits are different
>  be enough to cause me unknown problems with installing/running Linux?

Not sufficiently, I don't think.

>  -Kai