[CentOS] Centos-compatible motherboards

Fri Dec 27 22:16:57 UTC 2013
Fred Smith <fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us>

On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 12:44:02PM -0600, Johnny Hughes wrote:
> On 12/27/2013 07:11 AM, Fred Smith wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 03:40:43AM -0600, Johnny Hughes wrote:
> >> On 12/25/2013 09:51 PM, Fred Smith wrote:
> >>> Hi all!
> >>>
> >>> I'm toying with the idea of spending some Christmas money on a new MB and
> >>> CPU to upgrade my desktop.
> >>>
> >>> Although I've always been partial to AMD chips, I'm tempted this time to
> >>> find something Intel-ish, I5, quad core, or so.
> >>>
> >>> In looking at mommyboards  at New Egg and Amazon, I find so many I am
> >>> unable to make reasonable determinations regarding suitability, so am
> >>> hoping some of you who have new(ish) intel-compatible boards could 
> >>> offer some hints.
> >>>
> >>> Also, I'd like to keep the cost of MB, CPU and RAM to no more (or little
> >>> more) than $300-350. (seeing as how apparently mid-range I5 chips cost
> >>> over 200 each, that may be a vain hope.)
> >>>
> >>> I expect that the newest ones may work with something bleeding edge
> >>> like Fedora (et al), but I like centos for my desktop since it doesn't
> >>> have the ridiculous churn rate of the more aggressive distros. I can't
> >>> bring myself to relish the thought of rebuilding my main desktop twice
> >>> a year (or even once a year).
> >>>
> >>> So, any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
> >> I personally have recently built 2 different systems with with the Asus
> >> M5A99X Evo R2.0 motherboard.  This one does not have a graphics card ...
> >> everything does work with CentOS-6.5 and RHEL7B1.
> >>
> >> It uses AMD CPUs and I have used several AM3+ CPUs, including Sempron
> >> 100, FX-6150, and FX-8150.
> >>
> >> https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A99X_EVO_R20/
> >>
> >> One of the nicest features is it will detect and set a working BIOS
> >> memory timing with a press of a button on the board ... if you try
> >> something manually that is incompatible, a simple press of the button
> >> and reboot will get you back to a working config.
> > Johnny:
> >
> > I assume it has UEFI and "secure boot"? did you disable the secure boot
> > feature before installing? (AFAIK Centos doesn't yet support UEFI/secure
> > boot????)
> >
> > I have an existing pair of drives holding Centos in a software Raid-1
> > configuration, and I'm assuming I can simply move them to the new
> > board, boot and be off to the races. Can you comment on that assumption?
> 
> The software raid-1 should work fine ... plenty of room for drives on
> that board.  As long as you have a normal file system on sata dirves, it
> should boot.  You may need to reconfigure the hardware (obviously,
> different network cards, audio, video, etc.)
> 
> The version of the BIOS that I currently have does have a secure boot
> turn off feature. (1302 x64 is my BIOS version) Looks like there are 5
> newer versions of the BIOS than the one I have installed now.
> 
Johnny:

Thanks once more for the info.

one other thing I thought to ask about: my current gigabyte board, with
Phenom II X2, somehow doesn't expost the Virtual extensions in the CPU
in a way that VirtualBox can recognize it (I'm sure it's a VB bug, but
I'd like to be rid of it), preventing installation of 64-bit VMs.
Have you by any chance tried VB on that motherboard (with Centos) and
noted whether it lets you install 64-bit VMs ?

Thanks once more.

Johnny:

Thanks once more for the info.

one other thing I thought to ask about: my current gigabyte board, with
Phenom II X2, somehow doesn't expost the Virtual extensions in the CPU
in a way that VirtualBox can recognize it (I'm sure it's a VB bug, but
I'd like to be rid of it), preventing installation of 64-bit VMs.
Have you by any chance tried VB on that motherboard (with Centos) and
noted whether it lets you install 64-bit VMs ?

Thanks once moreJohnny:

Thanks once more for the info.

one other thing I thought to ask about: my current gigabyte board, with
Phenom II X2, somehow doesn't expost the Virtual extensions in the CPU
in a way that VirtualBox can recognize it (I'm sure it's a VB bug, but
I'd like to be rid of it), preventing installation of 64-bit VMs.
Have you by any chance tried VB on that motherboard (with Centos) and
noted whether it lets you install 64-bit VMs ?

Thanks once more.

-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -----------------------------
    "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of
     heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
------------------------------ Matthew 7:21 (niv) -----------------------------