This page describes different kinds of motherboards, and how well they are support by Linux.

• Asus A7V: Socket A, VIA KT133 chipset
• Asus CUSL2: Socket 370, Intel 815e chipset
• Abit AN8 SLI: Socket 939, nVidia nForce4 SLI chipset

The Asus A7V motherboard uses VIA Technologies' KT133 (VT8363/8365) chipset, which provides AGP x4 and AC'97 sound.

Despite the problems some people are having, it works great for me, and is rock stable. I'm using BIOS 1004D.

There are a number of features on this motherboard, that might need a bit of work to get running under Linux, although most new distributions support these features out of the box:

• Hardware sensors
• Integrated sound: AC'97
• ATA66 IDE controller: VIA IDE controller, supports 4 devices
• ATA100 IDE controller: Promise ULTRA100 IDE controller, supports 4 devices
• 2x USB 1.1 ports

For more information:

The Asus A7V as built-in hardware sensors, which monitors CPU/motherboard temperature,voltage and fan speed. See configuring lm_sensors for details on configuring lm_sensors.. The A7V uses the following modules:

I2C Hardware Bus support  --->
    <M> VIA 82C596/82C686/823x
Hardware Sensors Chip support  --->
    <M> Winbond W83781D, W83782D, W83783S, W83627HF, Asus AS99127F

The sound is provided by the VIA chipset's south bridge, and only offers basic features like stereo output and microphone in.

See my configuring ALSA page for instructions on getting ALSA working. To enable support for this card, enable

PCI devices  --->
    <M> VIA 82C686A/B, 8233 South Bridge

The onboard sound does not work anymore on my A7V, so I have installed a Creative SoundBlaster Live! Player 5.1

There are 2 ATA66 interfaces on the A7V provided by the VIA chipset.

Just enable:

Device Drivers  --->
    ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support  --->
        <*> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
	<*>   Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL disk/cdrom/tape/floppy support
	<*>     Include IDE/ATA-2 DISK support
	[*]     PCI IDE chipset support
	[*]       Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
	[*]         Use PCI DMA by default when available
	<*>         VIA82CXXX chipset support

The Promise PDC20265 (FastTrak100 Lite/Ultra100) provides 2 ATA100 interfaces on the A7V.

Enable support for IDE devices as described above, and also:

<*>         PROMISE PDC202{46|62|65|67} support

If you are using an older version of Redhat (e.g < 7.1) look at this page (you should upgrade if so :).

To enable support for the USB 1.1 controller on the motherboard, you have to enable these setting in the kernel:

Device Drivers  --->
    USB support  --->
        <M> Support for Host-side USB
	[*]   USB device filesystem
	<M> UHCI HCD (most Intel and VIA) support
	<M> USB Human Interface Device (full HID) support
	[*]   HID input layer support

You might also have to add this to your system's /etc/fstab:

none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0

For more information:

The Asus CUSL2 motherboard uses Intel's 815e chipset, which provides AGP x4 and ATA100.

There are a number of features on this motherboard, that might need a bit of work to get running under Linux, although most new distributions support these features out of the box:

• Hardware sensors
• Integrated video: 815e
• ATA100 IDE controller: ICH2 ATA100 IDE controller, supports 4 devices
• 2x USB 1.1 ports
• Hardware random number generator

For more information:

The Asus CUSL2 as built-in hardware sensors, which monitors CPU/motherboard temperature,voltage and fan speed.

See configuring lm_sensors for details on configuring lm_sensors.

The Asus CUSL2 uses the following modules: (The 801 modules enables support for the 82801 chip in the 815e chipset)

I2C Hardware Bus support  --->
   <M> Intel 801
Hardware Sensors Chip support  --->
    <M> Winbond W83781D, W83782D, W83783S, W83627HF, Asus AS99127F

I have not used the CUSL2's integrated 815e video (uses the i810 driver), but it looks like it is well supported, it even supports XvMC (X Video Motion Compensation, hardware accelerated playback of MPEG2 streams).

For more information:

The CUSL2 has 2 onboard ATA100 interfaces provided by the ICH2 chip. Just enable:

Device Drivers  --->
    ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support  --->
        <*> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
	<*>   Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL disk/cdrom/tape/floppy support
	<*>     Include IDE/ATA-2 DISK support
	[*]     PCI IDE chipset support
	[*]       Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
	[*]         Use PCI DMA by default when available
	<*>         Intel PIIXn chipsets support

To enable support for the USB 1.1 controller, you have to enable these setting in your kernel:

Device Drivers  --->
    USB support  --->
        <M> Support for Host-side USB
	[*]   USB device filesystem
	<M> UHCI HCD (most Intel and VIA) support
	<M> USB Human Interface Device (full HID) support
	[*]   HID input layer support

You might also have to add this to your system's /etc/fstab:

none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0

For more information:

The 815e chipset on the CUSL2 motherboard contains a hardware random number generator. To enable support for this, select the following in your kernel:

Device Drivers  --->
    Character devices  --->
        <*> Intel/AMD/VIA HW Random Number Generator support

The Abit AN8 SLI motherboard uses nVidia's nForce4 SLI chipset, which provides PCI-e, Gbit lan, Firewire, USB 2.0 and 7.1 sound. I'm currently using BIOS rev. 17

The nVidia nForce4 SLI chipset needs good cooling as it produces a lot of heat. The Abit AN8 SLI uses a heatpipe to transport the heat away from the chipset. This means that there is no need for a small noisy fan. Another feature that reduces noise is the motherboard's ability to regulate the voltage supplied to fans connected to the motherboard (called FanEQ control by Abit). This reduces the speed of the fans and thereby the noise they make. Currently there is no support in Linux to control the fans, but the BIOS does a fine job at controlling the fans so there is no real need.

Overview of motherboard components:

• Hardware sensors: Abit µGuru
• Integrated sound: AudioMAX 7.1
• ATA133 IDE controller: nForce4 IDE controller, supports 4 devices
• SATA 3G controller: nForce4 SATA controller, supports 4 devices
• 4x USB 2.0 ports
• 1x Firewire 400 ports

For more information:

The Abit AN8 SLI as built-in hardware sensors, which monitors CPU/motherboard temperature, voltage and fan speed. Currently there is no support in lm_sensors because Abit has not released any documentation about its "µGuru" chip, which contains the sensors. But there is a application that can read temperature, fan speed and voltage available here: uGuru under linux

The integrated sound is placed on a small daughterboard, it is basically a Realtek ALC850 chip which has been moved off the motherboard, and it goes under the name: Abit AudioMAX. The ALC850 chip provides 7.1 Channel AC'97 audio, jack sensing and S/PDIF in/out.

See my configuring ALSA page for instructions on getting ALSA working. To enable support for this card, enable

PCI devices  --->
    <M> Intel/SiS/nVidia/AMD/ALi AC97 Controller

Note! This sound card does not support hardware mixing.

I don't use the onboard sound, as I prefer the sound quality and hardware mixing of my Creative SoundBlaster Live! Player 5.1

There are 2 ATA133 interfaces on the AN8 SLI provided by the nForce chipset.

Just enable:

Device Drivers  --->
    ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support  --->
        <*> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
	<*>   Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL disk/cdrom/tape/floppy support
	<*>     Include IDE/ATA-2 DISK support
	[*]     PCI IDE chipset support
	[*]       Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
	[*]         Use PCI DMA by default when available
	<*>         AMD and nVidia IDE support

The Abit AN8 SLI motherboard supports 4 SATA devices, and supports RAID 0/1/0+1. The controller works with the sata_nv driver. Enable the following in your kernel:

Device Drivers  --->
    SCSI device support  --->
              SCSI low-level drivers  --->
	          <*> Serial ATA (SATA) support
		  <*>   NVIDIA SATA support

As I only have one harddrive in my workstation I do not use the RAID features.

To enable support for the USB 2.0 controller on the motherboard, you have to enable these settings in the kernel:

Device Drivers  --->
    USB support  --->
        <*> Support for Host-side USB
	[*]   USB device filesystem
	<*>   EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support
	<*> USB Human Interface Device (full HID) support
	[*]   HID input layer support

You might also have to add this to your system's /etc/fstab:

none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0

Note! This will only enable support for USB 2.0 devices, in order to access an USB 1.1 device you must also have support for OHCI.

For more information:

To enable support for the Firewire controller on the motherboard, you have to enable these setting in the kernel:

Device Drivers  --->
    IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support  --->
        <M> IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support
        <M>   OHCI-1394 support
        <M>   SBP-2 support (Harddisks etc.)