A Kick Ass Rig for Ubuntu

[aqualab]

Hi everyone, I want to build a Ubuntu PC with a X38 or X48 motherboard, or Something to drive a Phenom x4 , I will make the build in an Antec Skeleton. Some members here who have good experience with some good descent MTB with Ubuntu ? Thanks

[Speederlander]

Just make sure you have linux drivers for everything. Even the popular linux distros lag on driver support or have buggy drivers with new hardware.

[Melcar]

On the AMD side, pretty much any board out now is supported. Should be the same for Intel. What is more likely to happen however, is incompatibility with certain BIOS revisions (some manufactures ship their boards with glitchy BIOS); the Linux kernel is very "sensitive" to BIOS errors. Unfortunately this is very hit and miss, but for the most part you should experience little to no problems with motherboard compatibility in Linux.
Most issues people have when it comes to drivers are video cards and peripherals (printers, web cams, wlan devices, etc.). Video cards are not really a problem now, since both ATI and nvidia have good drivers and installing them is rather easy, but things like printers and stuff you still need to research.

[Logos]

...I gave up Linux, about a month ago (edit:a bit less...), I think for good this time. Don't get me wrong, the hardware was running fine (wi-fi, Intel graphics, Printer/Scanner etc...). I gave up for other reasons, but do yourself a favor, at least try some other distros, don't think that Ubuntu is Linux...my god...try Mandriva or Suse. Mandriva 2009.1 is the best distro release I ever run. And there's a 64 bit as well (you'll have to google for the download, as they don't put the link on the website main page, for stupid reasons...go to ftp repositories directly).

OK the interface, it's been upgraded very successfully to KDE 4.23; the integration is better than anywhere else because they have a KDE dev(not an ex...) working with them permanently. Hardware support is really good, except for some Intel drivers (mine was OK). Go NVidia by all means :D ATI drivers have become bad again from what I heard.

http://xtremewaters.blogspot.com/2009/05/too-bad-theres-no-os-behind.html

[Melcar]

Fedora or OpenSuse are other good alternatives.

[NidStyles]

Don't forget Debian :D

[MentholMoose]

I've been using Linux desktops for about 8 years now. I haven't had many driver problems at all. I like how almost all drivers are included with the kernel, so you rarely if ever have to hunt down a driver. Staying current on revisions for almost all drivers is as simple as upgrading the kernel.

The problems I've had have mostly been with video cards; the official ATI and nvidia drivers are proprietary and not included with the kernel. I actually haven't had a problem with a desktop videocard, but have had problems with the ATI videocard in my laptop. I've never had a problem with motherboard compatibility. For devices like printers and webcams, you should do some research before buying. Just search Google for "Linux" plus your device name and model number, and you should find the info immediately.

WLAN cards used to be tricky since the same model could have different chipsets, but nowadays I think most WLAN cards are supported... I've never had a problem with any WLAN card based on Atheros or Intel chipsets. Regular NICs are mostly supported... I think only some super cheap/obscure onboard NICs will be unsupported. Any Intel NIC is supported so you can always buy one on eBay for $10 and not worry about it.

I think the RAID functionality of most onboard RAID chips (AKA "fakeraid") doesn't work; the ports will function as regular SATA ports, so if you want RAID you can setup software RAID in Linux. Or you can use a supported hardware RAID card (safest choice is 3ware since almost all are supported, also most LSI cards work).