Mobo Compatability

[Michael A. Peters]

On 01/03/2005 05:44:11 PM, Felix Miata wrote:

> http://www.mozillaquest.com/Linux04/Asus_Sucks_Story-01.html

I've never had any problems whatsover with Asus boards and Linux.
Talk is cheap.

Maybe they did have legitimate issues, but I'm guessing Asus is using a  
chipset they licensed, and they may not be able to open up certain  
things to Linux developers because of an NDA.

For example, my current motherboard is an A7N8X Deluxe - it uses an  
nForce 2 chipset from nVidia - which is where any support from Linux  
should come from.

When the IEEE 1394 didn't work (RH8 days) I didn't expect Asus to fix  
it, I expected either OSS or nVidia to fix it. OSS did.

When the onboard 3Com nic didn't work - I didn't blame Asus, I  
downloaded the 2 line kernel patch that made it work. When the nVidia  
network adapter didn't work, I had the option of using a closed source  
driver from nvidia. Instead I chose to not use that adapter.

Nothing on that board that I had issues with were anything I expected  
Asus to provide fixes for - they either already had fixes in the AC  
tree of the kernel at the time I bought the board (or very soon after  
for ide controller) or they were an nVidia issue (like the network card  
and only working well with nvidia AGP cards) and not something Asus was  
to blame for.

Sorry - but articles like that get under my skin, they do nothing to  
help LOTD and are imho just FUD about a vendor that sells hardware  
mostly with licensed chipsets that _do_ in fact work very well in  
Linux.

Sometimes when people can't get something to work, they start the "Bad  
Vendor" thing - and that doesn't help anyone out. Very often the  
solution is as simple as trying a kernel from a testing branch - and  
the alan cox branch in my experience is the best one to try first for  
new hardware support, if it isn't already in a pre kernel.