rig based on P35 chipset
Hello, I'm planning on buying a new box and I'd like to know if there are any problems, such as missing linux drivers.
So, here is my wish list:
Asus P5K-DELUXE/WIFI-AP with p35 chipset (includes some Linux drivers on CD - are they complete?)
Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR2 1066MHz CL5 Dual Channel Kit [ KHX8500D2K2/2GN ]
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Box [ BX80562Q6600 ]
Asus GeForce 8800GTS 320MB DDR3 320-bit [ EN8800GTS/HTDP/320M ] - Are there drivers for GeForce 8800?
Case Enermax ECA3052 BS Chakra [ ECA3052 BS Chakra ]
Power supply Enermax EG701AX-VE 600W SLI [ EG701AX-VE ]
Case, Power supply, motherboard support some form of fan speed control under Linux? Maybe lm_sensors supports this?
Also ASUS provides the MB and VGA with a number of functions (ASUS AI Nap, ASUS Q-Fan). I presume based these are based on Windows drivers & apps - do they work in Wine or are there alternatives?
I'm especially interested in power savings advertised with AI Nap.
PS. Does WiFi AP work under linux?
Last edited by buildingbob21; 08-13-2007 at 02:08 AM.
That system should be ok; there's already a
driver available for the Wifi chip (Realtek 8187 ) in latest 2.6.23-rc3, and the GF8800 was
supported almost from the time it was released.
The asus tools probably won't work with linux,
as they usually require a windows-specific driver. (If you're lucky these functions are
exported through ACPI and someone can hack
a driver for them...). Also, I'm almost 100%
sure those tools won't run properly under wine.
What about power and ACPI functions ?
I read about Power states in a PC at http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=420.
I am especially concearned about functions that underclock my CPU, GPU, Ram under low workloads. I want to save power and make a quiet working enviroment.
Do these underclock functions work out of the box under Linux? Who provides these functions? Is everything included in the kernel?
As far as I know in some other operating system (Wi...) only the device drivers are needed and the n_t kernel does all the work related to underclocking.
What about temperature sensors and fan controls supported by the motherboard?
What about underclocking components (CPU, GPU, memory, sound) under low workloads? or even putting to sleep the whole system?
In other proprietary OS (W... xp), this works without advanced applications (ASUS NAP, AI) that are bound not to work.
Last edited by buildingbob21; 08-21-2007 at 09:38 PM. Reason: grammar corrections
Temp/Fan readings should not be a problem; linux has drivers forOriginally Posted by buildingbob21
almost all hwmon chips used on pc boards.
Linux' ACPI implementation takes care of putting the CPU in
appropriate C/P states (you can even select the algorithms which
decide when to put the cpu into a certain P-state; they're called
"cpufreq governors".). The only requirement are sane ACPI tables.
Suspend-to-Ram is a bit trickier; it depends on the quality of
the bios and acpi tables and the drivers. Unfortunately the
S3/S5 features are always work-in-progress on linux so it may or
may not work, depending on kernel version, bios version and moon phase
I can't tell if the asus stuff (ai nap, ...) will work; the website doesn't go beyond the usual marketing blah-blah (it may
very well be that "ai nap" is just their term for intel's speedstep. Just like their "crashfree-bios" is just another
term for a feature found in the ICH southbridges)
Maybe your retailer will "borrow" you the board so you can
test linux on it, and take it back if you aren't satisfied.
Thanks for the detailed response.
After I get the board, I'll test it and post results here.
The motherboards from Gigabyte are top at the moment. My brother got a P965 one - it is overall just excellent and overclocks well!
Information about board performance is important too, but what I'm most interested here is how well it works with Linux. Since you do not mention anything about driver problems, I assume this part is ok right?
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