[WBEL-users] Athlon64 AMD64 motherboard recommendation

[Ed]

>>I'm leaning towards NForce3 based boards, as these seem to be really
>>common, but I'm wondering if the built in stuff, like Ethernet, is
>>easy to enable and configure.

NO! AHHHHH! NO! NO! DEAR GOD! <sprays holy water with a firehose> THE 
HUMANITY!!!

>>
> 
> 
> 	I can't speak directly to NForce3's, but I have an NForce2 that
> takes IA32 AMD chips.  Nvidia is very proud of their secret
> Ethernet, Sound and Firewire chipsets.  

Oh, yes.  We'd be in a world of hurt should Nvidia's customers have any 
idea how their computer works.  Um, so it makes sense.  These people 
fell off the clueless tree and hit every branch on the way down.

> So there's no support for
> them under Linux without binary only drivers.  Nvidia is generally
> pretty good about releasing updated drivers for their video cards
> that are kernel neutral, and I use those.

Yep.

> 
> 	I hate binary only drivers that are kernel specific as I'm at
> the mercy of my vendor.  So I'd recommend checking to be sure the
> chipsets are supported via the default drivers in WBEL.  I'd be
> absolutely shocked if they are.

It's possible that WBEL has the forcedeth driver.  Which is the reverse 
engineered ethernet driver.  So once you boot linux for the first time 
you can get online and complain about how crappy your motherboard is. 
Which is what I did.  Save yourself!

   Ed

> 
> 	Thanks,
> 		Kirby
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