[olug] Mobo/Video recommendations

[Luke -Jr]

On Wednesday 06 February 2008, Obi-Wan wrote:
> This will run Ubuntu Gutsy (7.10). 

That might make it harder to know for sure. Ubuntu has always had issues with 
hardware that just works on other Linux-based OS.

> I want a single socket, dual core AMD mobo 

FYI, Intel CPUs are currently the better bang-for-the-buck.

> with at least 2 IDE ports (4 drives), onboard audio, 8GB RAM, 
> and as many PCI(-X) slots as possible.

Do you want PCI or PCI Express? Pretty sure the latter is NOT backward 
compatible.

> I know that nVidia vid cards have had a good reputation for Linux
> support over the years. 

nVidia cards have a good reputation on *proprietary* Linux platforms only.
If you want to run a free OS, nVidia will do accelerated 2D and not much more 
(3D support is currently "works for a few very lucky developers").

> With AMD buying ATI, has Linux support for their cards improved any, or
> should I still avoid ATI? 

ATi has always been far better than nVidia-- as long as you don't get their 
newest cards. Up to the Radeon 9250 have been supported practically forever, 
and up to X850 have good 3D acceleration currently. With AMD's purchase, the 
specs for the top of the line RadeonHD cards are available to Linux/X.org/DRI 
developers and should have good support within the year, if not sooner.
IIRC, all the integrated Intel GPUs have complete 3D acceleration as well.

> I also want to make sure that the mobo BIOS supports returning to the
> previous power state (on) after recovering from a power failure.  My
> current (dying) mobo can't do that, which is annoying when we get a
> power outage while I'm on vacation, since I run all my email through
> this machine.

I haven't seen any recent motherboards that can't do this.