Fedora on Asus M3N78-EM, anyone?

[M. Fioretti]

Greetings,

my motherboard just died, so I'm shopping for an urgent replacement which
should be (of course) 100% Fedora compatible. Right now, the best solution
(*) *may* be the ASUS M3N78-EM, which has an on-board nVidia geforce 8300
chipset.

I have already searched with google, of course, but honnestly haven't
found (or recognized, at least) enough information to understand if all
the hw of this motherboard will work without problems with F9 or F10
x86_64 and if/what special tweaking would be needed to
make it work: while I'd really, really like to not recompile kernel or
drivers unless I'm forced to do it, I have no problem to mess with config
files and such, as long as I know from the start that the hw is
Linux-compatible.

So, what do you say? Would this be a good choice for a Fedora box? Any
feedback is welcome!

TIA,
Marco

(*) as in "the cheapest card which is available at the corner store, since
I MUST restore that PC asap to work on it; is physically compatible with
the CPU and case I already have; has firewire and all the other I/Os I
need"

[Kevin Kofler]

M. Fioretti wrote:
> my motherboard just died, so I'm shopping for an urgent replacement which
> should be (of course) 100% Fedora compatible. Right now, the best solution
> (*) *may* be the ASUS M3N78-EM, which has an on-board nVidia geforce 8300
> chipset.

Well, as all NVidia GPUs, that chip requires proprietary drivers for 3D
acceleration.

Kevin Kofler

[M. Fioretti]

On Mon, December 29, 2008 6:11 pm, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> M. Fioretti wrote:
> > the best solution *may* be the ASUS M3N78-EM, which has an on-board

nVidia geforce
> > 8300 chipset.
>
> Well, as all NVidia GPUs, that chip requires proprietary drivers for 3D
> acceleration.

I know, the motherboard which just broke used the same drivers, but with
livna and then rpmfusion could use them without any problem. So it would
be OK for me, as long as it "just works" with yum. So the question
remains: is all the HW on this motherboard fully usable (even if this
implies proprietary drivers) with Fedora, without recompiling everything?

Thanks,

Marco

[Michael Cronenworth]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Fedora on Asus M3N78-EM, anyone?
From: M. Fioretti 
To: [e-mail]
Date: 12/29/2008 11:06 AM
> I know, the motherboard which just broke used the same drivers, but with
> livna and then rpmfusion could use them without any problem. So it would
> be OK for me, as long as it "just works" with yum. So the question
> remains: is all the HW on this motherboard fully usable (even if this
> implies proprietary drivers) with Fedora, without recompiling everything?

I cannot guarantee a working box, but a simple google search for "linux 
8300 chipset" resulted[1] in some folks claiming success with similar 
chipsets on ASUS boards.

[1] http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=125246

[M. Fioretti]

On Mon, December 29, 2008 6:25 pm, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> I cannot guarantee a working box, but a simple google search for "linux
> 8300 chipset" resulted[1] in some folks claiming success with similar
> chipsets on ASUS boards.
>
> [1] http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=125246

thanks for the link but hmmm... those in that page don't look like
"success" to me.

"GeForce 8200 motherboard. They seem problematic under linux"

"GeForce 9300,... other negative issues are 2D related performance
problems with the current stable Nvidia driver (there's a thread about
this problem) even when applying all the quick fixes"

"gygabyte mobo.. drivers 180.16 and instability problem + resolution not
yet correct/optimal"

I can live without 5.1 or other hi-fi sound, but I do need stable, perfect
2D graphics. If this is the status, this chipset doesn't look good for me.

Further info and experiences are welcome, of course.

Marco