Asus Motherboard and Linux compatibility

[clberry]

I'm looking to build my first home build system comprising of an Asus motherboard (Asus M4A78LT-M) and Atlon II CPU. The system will be used for internet browsing and home / office applications (i.e not for gaming); I am keen to use Linux partly to keep the cost down but also to learn about a different OS. The question is should the Asus work ok with Linux (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS) ?

Any comments appreciated.

[Kumi]

is it onboard graphics you'll be using or a separate card? I'm not very clear on why you're asking this, you see, because afaik the motherboard doesn't really make the blindest bit of difference with the OS. The graphics with Linux (unless they've gotten better over the years) does...ATI tend to have notoriously poor Linux support compared with nVidia.

[alecjw]

I'm looking to build my first home build system comprising of an Asus motherboard (Asus M4A78LT-M) and Atlon II CPU. The system will be used for internet browsing and home / office applications (i.e not for gaming); I am keen to use Linux partly to keep the cost down but also to learn about a different OS. The question is should the Asus work ok with Linux (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS) ?

Any comments appreciated.
This very similar motherboard is fully supported: http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/ASUS/M4A785TD-V+EVO
And looking through the specs of the one you want, it looks fine.
It has a radeon graphics card, which is well supported
Realtek networking, also supported (i have a similar chip on my motherboard)
I've googled the sound card, it looks like it's supported

So basically I'd say go for it :) The only hardware which tends to cause problems in linux nowadays is broadcom network cards (and we're getting close to a solution for that now). Linux has come a long way recently. I haven't been using GNU/Linux for long (I arrived on the scene mid-2006, with ubuntu 6.06 dapper drake) and I remember back then having an absolute nightmare getting my wireless and my video card to work. Nowadays, practically everything just works out of the box. Unless you use gentoo. Which I do. Because I get some strange masochistic pleasure when everything breaks and it's my fault.

[Kumi]

I haven't used Linux with anything but an nVidia card or an Intel GMA (laptop) for a while. It's always nice to know new bits of info, thanks!

[alecjw]

I haven't used Linux with anything but an nVidia card or an Intel GMA (laptop) for a while. It's always nice to know new bits of info, thanks!

nVidia have good non-free drivers, but in terms of free drivers, AMD come out on top. I have a radeon x1200 on my motherboard and it's working great with xcompositing using the free (radeon) driver.

I'll grant you that the non-free (fglrx) driver is dreadful though.

[clberry]

Yes, I am planning to use the motherboard graphics. I just had worry that I might be missing something fundamental so it’s good to hear the advice; even in just a few replies I have already learnt some useful things.

Thanks for looking into it, I certainly appreciate it.
:)