According to this article, Asus is not keen on Linux or open-source in general

http://www.mozillaquest.com/Linux04/Asus_Sucks_Story-02.html

I don't buy Asus products anyway because I think they're overpriced, but I'd rather buy from a company that supports open source

Ok, so lets ban Asus. But the trouble in those situation is that if ever the company decided to change it's atitude, we never know. It seems the Open Source community gives more advertizing when it's to ban than when it's to stop a ban.

Question then for my next PC purchase: what Motherboard IS a good buy to run a Linux system on? (good quality more important than price).

I dunno why Asus is singled out.. I think it's the chipset makers that should be held accountable for their support in Linux.

Perhaps it is coincidence that Asus was a former GPL violater:

http://www.gpl-violations.org/news/20040325-iptables.html

i have an asrock mainboard, basically a devision of asus. all i got was a hdd timout error and it refused to install. i think that linux should be made asus in-tolerant. literally give them the finger and make linux incompatable with asus. its asus that are loosing out, not us.

The only Asus I ever had, was an ASRock K7VT2, and Mandrake loved it. I have had mobos by Epox (1) - super socket 7, Tyan (2) - super socket 7 and Slot A (original Athlon), Gigabyte (2) - Socket A, and Chaintech (1) - Socket A.

The only mobo that actually came with a Linux distro in the box, is the Chaintech 7VJL Deluxe Apogee (Very nice mobo, but, doesn't like the NEC ND2500A all in one DVD/CD burner, at least as an internal).

All of them worked nicely with Mandrake. Only my current Gigabyte GA-7N400-L has the nForce2 chipset. The rest are Via KT/VT series chipsets.

Except that Asus will not admit that Asrock is a division of the company.
Anyway, I used to try an Asrock too. The quality is even worse than ECS, but not as bad as regular PC-Chips.

No seriously, what did Asus do to deserve an emnity with Linux users? They only copied the reference board made by the chipset makers pretty much. The only thing that they didn't copy from the reference board is that deluxe version of NForce2 Mobo. They used a different chipset for their audio solution, but other than that, pretty much a copy.

I think ASUS quality has dropped in a lot of recent models. and the issues between their own motherboards and their own Radeon 9600XTs have created some long running discussions on the VIA Arena boards. Too many other good choices at better prices out there to worry about them, but it would be nice if there was some place we could see a definitive list of hardware makers who are active in their "embrace" of Linux while staying true to the GPL, etc... Any such thing?

Very sad

I have the following Asus MOBOs
A7A266 - Win XP / MDK 9.2
A7M266 - Win XP / MDK 9.2
A7N8X-X - MDK 9.2 only

I have had good luck with Asus boards, guess the next go around is with someone else...

I am now, of course, going to be the voice of dissention on this matter:

(1) Overpriced???
ASUS "K8V" K8T800 Chipset Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-131-491&depa=0
Onboard LAN: Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit Ethernet
RAM: 3x DIMM for DDR400/333/266(un-buffered, ECC&Non-ECC) Max 3GB
Onboard SATA/RAID: 4x Serial ATA Ports; RAID 0/1 for 2 SATA by South Bridge
Ports: 2xPS2,1xCOM,1xLPT,1xLAN,8xUSB2.0(Rear 4),SPDIF Out,Audio Ports

$105


CHAINTECH "SK8T800" K8T800 Chipset Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-152-039&depa=0
Onboard LAN: VIA VT6103 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet
RAM: 2x DIMM for DDR400/333/266 Max 2GB
Onboard SATA/RAID: 2x SATA 150, RAID 0/1
Ports: 2xPS/2,2xCOM,1xLPT,1xLAN,2xUSB2.0,Audio Ports

$76


(2) I've never even heard of Marvell. Why blame Asus and not them?

(3) Lots of companies don't 'support' Linux and several of 'us' use their products. There are so many different distros that use so many different ways of doing things, if you were a hardware manufacturer, would you want to spend millions of dollars to train all your employees how to handle individual Linux distros? Do we boycott them all?
Compaq is a big non-supporter of Linux (I was told "We do not support Linux" by their tech support for my first laptop, which I returned...but not for that particular reason). How many of you have helped people with Compaqs? Linksys is also a big non-supporter of Linux...I've been told this myself by someone in an email who signed their email as some regional VP, but yet, there are several users on this board that *swear* by Linksys products.

(4) Boycotting them will do no good. Linux users represent a very, very small percentage of any user-base. What needs to happen is for people to send them letters, call them, whatever, and tell them, "Hey, not only am I a Linux user, but because of this, I also tend to be the 'tech support' for all my Windows-using friends and I promise you that I will inform every one of them not to buy your products." or "Hey, I'm a Linux user and your product said that it works in Linux on the box and that is why I bought it. I will also recommend your products to my friends who use Windows."

(5) "Except that Asus will not admit that Asrock is a division of the company. "
Many, many companies have 'economy divisions' and don't want to admit to owning them...'economy' almost always brings low quality and the parent company doesn't want to be associated with 'low quality'.

(6) Companies that actually support Linux. (This link is not actually a list, but click it and see what I mean):
http://linux.crynwr.com/

Signed,
Proud Owner of an Asus A7V600 MoBo

P.S. Not to mention: Have any of you verified the truthfulness of this article? (Not that I'm doubting it is true.)

My asus a7v333 is still great.
Asus makes new bioses available long after successors of their mobos are around.

About quality, maybe, but who makes better boards? Read anandtech, tomshardware, linuxhardware etc...

Basically, I'm with Steve on this one.
Steve, you make sense.

BTW I actually do mail the companies with proper linux support and/or linux mentioned on the box etcetc. Sometimes I got nice email back from them too (epson).

I love my ASUS mobo - the sounds, 3com gigabit lan and everything work... well.

They even had linux drivers for the onboard lan on their website.

This all doesn't make much sense to me, sounds more like the chipset manufacturers are to blame.

Personally, Asus' stuff has become overpriced for their feature / quality. The problem is in Indonesia the name Asus has become synonymous with quality for regular computer buyers / shops. Me, I know enough to think otherwise. Too bad Epox doesn't have much presence in Indonesia since I prefer Epox to Asus.

Now, I need to find out what other brand names are out there in Indonesia other than Asus, ECS, and PC-Chips. I think MSI, DFI, and Chaintech is available also.

I used Epox in my last two systems and switched to ASUS for this one - I must say that they were very similar. I like Epox's approach though.

The Asus laptops are very cool though. Very cool...

Hmm I generally agree with steve and aRTee but

Well we were looking at 5-6% but first we have to remove 4-5% from the 100% becuase Mac users dont count in this case.

Then I dont have proof but I bet a high proportion of linux users build there own boxes and an even higher proportion take a big interest in chipsets.

So it 'could' represent maybe 10% of consumer mobo purchases!


Then

on price... who would want onboard ethernet anyway.... its getting harder and harder to buy clean mobo's without built in crap ... NIC's are one I tolerate but graphics ... is just a recipee for disaster.


Onboard RAID is a waste of money... just look at the problems associated with it when it can be done in software. The only good RAID is real RAID and I see very few mobo based HW RAID controllers.... proper RAID controllers come with a nice cache and RISC processors.

but like the onboard graphics having it on the board is just a potential for problems...



Well I have an XBOX and MS keyb but I guess we could all boycott MS hardware and they wouldnt give a ****

but other companies should.....

Ive said this again and again... but Roland hits it on the head!
We need to support those that do... write letters like aRTee saying how we are pleased.
When i get screwed over like netgear have to me I do completely boycot them....
I can honestly say Ill never buy another nethar product so long as I live until they make a public announcement to support linux.

Anyway ASUS are a special case.... Ive often said if companies USE linux in their product but Dont support linux then this to me is the lowest they can sink.

Asus used linux in their routers yet wont support it for their users!

Look at my comparison again between an Asus and a Chaintec. I'm confused as to how you can say that.

Becuase it depends what you want... from the feature list you give the only part which bothers me is an extra DIMM slot and the 2x USB... (4 would be better)
$29 is still $29 and if you dont want the extra features its a waste but mainly I think mobo sales are now based on more gimmicky stuff than real innovations.

I pretty much prefer a minimalistic board even if its the same price..
i must have 3-4 unused good quality soundcards and a couple of graphic cards and a whole box of 100Mbit ethernet cards...

My built in nforce on the shuttle drove me mad until MDK 10 (although it drove me to Debian) ... I just couldnt get 4GB support and the nforce drivers to compile agains the 4GBup kernel.

If I could have just pulled it out and replaced it I have 10x NIC's that would work.....

If I charged myself a dollar an hour for the time messing with the stupid nforce card it cost me hundreds of dollars!

If I had a dollar for every built in board that has ever caused me problems ...Id be retiring
(well not quite but you get the point)

That's the price in the US. In Indonesia, a similarly configured Chaintech is about 80% the cost of Asus. The price of an Athlon 64 mobo like that could cost US$ 150 (since A64 is very rare in Indonesia, almost a year after Opteron was released and I have yet to see one A64 motherboard in Indonesia).

Cheap computer components in the US was the second reason why I regret going home to Indonesia.