[CentOS] How to select a motherboard

Thu Dec 15 15:06:14 UTC 2005
Will McDonald <wmcdonald at gmail.com>

On 15/12/05, Todd Cary <todd at aristesoftware.com> wrote:
> Not being familiar with chip sets and other factors that "hardware
> experts" understand, I am perplexed with the multitude of available
> motherboards.  Is there a Web site that can be of help or a "strategy"?
>
> My goal is to replace my motherboard with one that is Centos compatible
> and uses a Pentium 4 in the 2 MHz range.  As example, when I go to
> Mwave, I am presented with this list, but I really do not know what I
> should be looking for in the specs.

You have a couple of choices. Educate yourself a little on the state
of current hardware by reading up for a few days on, for example:

http://www.anandtech.com/
http://www.tomshardware.com/
http://arstechnica.com/index.ars
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/
etc. etc.

Bearing in mind your end use of the system. If it's going to be a
desktop or workstation then focus on articles pertaining to those, if
you're looking for server hardware concentrate on those.

You could also have a browse of the RHEL Hardware Compatibility List:

https://hardware.redhat.com/hwcert/index.cgi

Or you can wait for the suggestions from list members. :)

I'm not bang up-to-date with what's going on in hardware at the moment
because I haven't had to purchase in quantity recently but FWIW I like
Supermicro boards. You might want to try and avoid anything with
Adaptec SCSI controller chipsets, I seem to recall reading they're
dropping linux support.

Will.