OT-motherboard

[Debbie Deutsch]

Bob Taylor wrote:
> What Intel or AMD based 32 bit motherboard would you recommend with a
> minimum 1 Gig RAM. I don't require the latest. The first board
> manufactured with 1 Gig RAM would be fine. Of course Linux must fully
> support the board.
> 
> I'm asking because I am totally ignorant about motherboards. :-)
> 
> Bob

What do you want to do with your system?  At this point, all we know
that you don't need the fastest, newest system with all the bells and
whistles.

Having said that, welcome to the fun world of building Linux systems.  I
have built a few, and they have all ended up working as intended. :-)
You've already been giving a bunch of good advice, so I have only a few
more suggestions to offer:

- Regarding the ability to run Linux, assuming you have a workable cpu
and a modicum of memory, the thing that makes one motherboard better or
worse than another is the availability and quality of device drivers.
Any cpu that you obtain new (and most that you can buy used) these days
has plenty of power to run Linux.  Whether it is enough to make you
happy running Linux depends on your application, which you have not told
us yet. ;-)  A gig of RAM (amazingly inexpensive these days) is enough
to do lots of things.  The thing about the drivers is that a) device
drivers for brand new devices may not be as mature as drivers for
devices that have been around for a bit, and b) some devices (notably
nVidia) can lead you into proprietary driver territory.  The extent that
either of those issues matter depends on you and what you want to do.
So, if you have your eye on a particular motherboard, let your fingers
do the googling and see what the story is for the devices on that
motherboard.

- Depending on the purpose of the system, you may or may not want
onboard sound and/or video.  If you want a top-notch system (which I am
guessing is not the case) you would not use any on-board audio or video
because you would be purchasing separate sound and graphics cards.
OTOH, you can build an inexpensive desktop system using a motherboard
that includes video and sound support.  The motherboard may cost a bit
more than a similar product with no video and sound, but remember that
you are saving on not buying separate cards.  Having said that, the
quality of the video on motherboards can vary a lot.  So, once again,
it's a matter of your purpose for the system.  Sound probably is a less
sensitive issue.

Here is a final thought.  While plenty of system builds go smoothly, it
is not unheard-of to run into a bump in the road. Sometimes you get a
surprise because you didn't know something, sometimes the new system may
be a little picky to get working.  I've built three systems.  The first
one involved taking an old Windows machine with a dead disk drive,
replacing the drive, and loading Linux.  On that machine I discovered I
needed an IDE controller (cheap enough) because my new disk drive was
too big for the BIOS on the motherboard to handle.  (Yeah, that has
nothing to do with Linux, but I was really wet behind the ears and you
may be too.)  Also on that machine I discovered that there was no Linux
driver available for my sound card because the the manufacturer had gone
out of business years previously and there was not very much call for
anyone to bother to get it supported.  On my second build, all my
hardware was shiny new and up-to-date... maybe too up-to-date.
Smooth-as-silk support is there for it now, with FC5, but this was five
months ago, and to do what I wanted required some installation and
configuration that I did not feel knowledgeable enough to attempt.  My
most recent system sounds similar to what you are doing - inexpensive
and not fancy.  It has a 64-bit Intel processor.  For some reason -
drivers are suspected - it could not completely boot off the 64-bit FC5
distro.  Happily, though, it works just fine with the 32-bit distro.  So
the question is, are you in a hurry?  Do you feel uncomfortable with the
possibility that you may run into some glitch as part of your build?  If
the answer to either of those is yes, then perhaps you should find a
buddy who can do the build for you, or maybe even buy a system with
Fedora already installed.  OTOH, if you are up to it, building a FC5
system from scratch is a fun project and the results will probably be
very satisfying.

HTH,

Debbie Deutsch