[NBLUG/talk] Does a Mobo chart exist?

droman at romansys.com droman at romansys.com
Mon Nov 27 08:54:43 PST 2006


Todd,

  I have never seen one centralized motherboard chart that says all these
motherboards work with Linux.  Part of the issue is that each distro.
has it's own kernel patches and may or may not support additional
features on motherboards.  So one chart wouldn't work unless you could
use the stock kernel all the time.  Some distros have compatibility
charts, however these are rarely complete enough to be useful...check
each distros web site.

  Most mobo manufactures have compatibility charts.  However, these charts
often only list the largest distros, such as red hat enterprise Linux or
suse, as compatible.  The previous e-mail was correct in saying that you
should probably just find a mobo that you like, then look at the
compatibility chart from the vendor.  If it mentions Linux at all, there
is a very good probability that it will work with most Linux distros.

  The issue with the built in raid on motherboards is that it usually
isn't built in raid at all.  It's usually what many vendors call "Host
Raid".  Host raid is when the onboard chip has some hardware features,
but all the raid functionality happens in the OS via the vendors
proprietary driver software.  Without the driver software doing the
raid, there wouldn't be any raid at all.  The drivers are often
proprietary and not offered for Linux...that's why people say stay away
from them.  However, there have been some advances in this area via
software and kernel modules, aka. libata,dm moduels & dmsetup, that
support some of these chips.

  Your probably just as good doing Linux software raid via the md
devices/modules.  Most of the onboard raid chipsets allow you turn off
the raid function and just use JBOD instead anyway.

  If you want your OS on raid, then I would suggest running the md device
Linux raid or buying a real raid card such as a 3ware, adaptec or lsi
card that is supported in Linux.

See http://sources.redhat.com/dm/ &
http://www.linuxmanpages.com/man8/dmsetup.8.php for more info on the dm
modules and dmsetup.  In addition, you can read the kernel docs listed in
the kernel tree to learn more about these.

Hope that helps,
   ---Dean.







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