Motherboards & FreeBSD [used to be "RE: Disappointed with version 6.0"]

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Peter [mailto:petermatulis at yahoo.ca]
>Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 5:53 PM
>To: Ted Mittelstaedt; freebsd-questions
>Subject: Motherboards & FreeBSD [used to be "RE: Disappointed with
>version 6.0"]
>
>
>
>--- Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at toybox.placo.com> wrote:
>
>> >I'm setting up a new server on 6.0 I've been planning for a long
>> time
>> >and I am very disappointed with two critical issues.  My motherboard
>> is
>> >the ASUS K8V-X SE that I chose because it was listed as compatible
>> at
>> >the FreeBSD/amd64 Project:
>> >
>> >http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/amd64/motherboards.html
>> >
>>
>> Peter,
>>
>>   That's really a poor choice as a server board.
>
>You get right to the point don't you?  :|
>

I try,

>>   I don't know if you have a particular favorite of ASUS, but if your
>> selecting a motherboard to build a server around from ASUS's product
>> line you have to dig a bit.
>
>I don't mind digging a bit; I actually lean towards quality.  And I'm
>not partial towards any one maker either.  My main issue is in
>identifying boards that will have their components recognized by
>FreeBSD.  Is there a secret resource I haven't found?  Please oblige.
>

It depends how far along the curve you want to be.  Chipset manufacturers
constantly change their products and new support is going into FreeBSD
all
the time, the problem is the newest boards probably won't be 100%
supported.  This is a separate issue from the reputation of the chipsets
of course, SiS probably has the worst reputation, VIA is a bit better,
Intel is better than that, etc.

What you want to look for are chipsets that are built on older designs,
for example the Intel ICH7 is a brushup of the ICH6 which is a brushup
of the ICH5, etc. you get the idea.  Thus it's really easy to add in
support for it since the earlier variants are already supported.  By
contrast a brand new chipset line that has never seen FreeBSD before is
going to take a lot longer to support.

And of course, it's better to look for server quality hardware since
more of that is going to be used for FreeBSD by the folks that are
more advanced and will be supported faster.

Ted