Shuttle system (SB51G) compatibility with Linux/FreeBSD?
Lucius Chiaraviglio
motherboard.)
I am narrowing down my list of motherboards to consider for my next
system to run Linux or FreeBSD. The Shuttle SB51G is on this short list (in
which case I would be getting not just the motherboard, but also the case and
power supply and some other bits of hardware from Shuttle). Unfortunately, it
is extremely hard to find compatibility information for recent (read: still
available) products. (For instance, the Linux Hardware How-To and the FreeBSD
list of supported hardware do not seem to have very many recent products.)
Hardware review sites other than linuxhardware.org give no information about
this either, and linuxhardware.org only has very scattered reviews of recent
products (and those sound rather scary in the compatibility department). Most
of the manufacturers' web sites are no help either, and Shuttle's is no
exception, having (as far as I can tell) no Linux compatibility information
whatsoever. I noticed that a few months ago, some people in the shuttle
mainboards newsgroup tested Linux on the Shuttle SB51G (and also some other
Shuttle small form-factor systems). The upshot (as of late November 2002)
seemed to be that most stuff worked under Linux (no reports of any test under
a *BSD operating system), but USB 2.0 was not actually tested with USB 2.0
devices (only USB 1.1, it seems, although the postings did not specify any
details), and Firewire was not tested, and kernels up through 2.4.19 (at least
had problems with some interaction between the APIC (programmable interrupt
controller) and ACPI (power management feature), including a bug that made the
on-board network stop working. Does anyone have an update to report on any
of this?
Also, how bad is the performance hit going to be for using the
on-board graphics of the i845GE chip set (assuming that this is compatible
with XFree86 4.x) instead of an add-on AGP video card? (The various hardware
review sites seem to avoid covering this, even for Windows, let alone a free
operating system.)
--
Lucius Chiaraviglio
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user
I use the SB51G with Redhat 8. It installed right out of the box,
and everything worked fine - sound, video, network, firewire, etc.
I later added a GeForce card for better performance, but the onboard
video was perfectly fine for non 3D gaming purposes. The only
other significant difference is that I run kernel 2.4.20.
So - no problems in the least. Runs 24x7, and has been
doing so for the 6 weeks I've had it.
- Rich
Rob MacGregor
> (3 of 5 queries; no point reading this if you aren't using a Shuttle
> motherboard.)
>
> I am narrowing down my list of motherboards to consider for my next
> system to run Linux or FreeBSD. The Shuttle SB51G is on this short list (in
> which case I would be getting not just the motherboard, but also the case and
> power supply and some other bits of hardware from Shuttle). Unfortunately, it
> is extremely hard to find compatibility information for recent (read: still
> available) products.
I've not installed FreeBSD onto one, however I have installed Linux (Mandrake 9.0
and 9.1) onto them and it works fine. I've got an older Shuttle box that's
running FreeBSD quite happily.
--
Rob MacGregor (MCSE) Oh my God! They killed init! You bastards!
The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming dragon.
Torfinn Ingolfsen
> I am narrowing down my list of motherboards to consider for my next
> system to run Linux or FreeBSD. The Shuttle SB51G is on this short list (in
> which case I would be getting not just the motherboard, but also the case and
> power supply and some other bits of hardware from Shuttle). Unfortunately, it
FWIW, I have installed FreeBSD on a Shuttle SS51G, and it is now my main
machine at home. You can red about the install experiemce here:
http://geekinfo.net/article.php?story=20021229152603904
Hope this helps.
--
Torfinn Ingolfsen,
Norway
Lucius Chiaraviglio
This pointed me to Linux and SiS VGA Chip Sets (makes me wonder about
the rest of the SiS chipset), http://www.winischhofer.net/linuxsis630.shtml.
Proprietary binary-only driver -- ouch. Thanks for the info (-: this kind of
thing is good to know before purchase -- thanks for being the guinea pig :-).
RF
<SNIP>
> I use the SB51G with Redhat 8. It installed right out of the box,
> and everything worked fine - sound, video, network, firewire, etc.
> I later added a GeForce card for better performance, but the onboard
> video was perfectly fine for non 3D gaming purposes. The only
> other significant difference is that I run kernel 2.4.20.
>
> So - no problems in the least. Runs 24x7, and has been
> doing so for the 6 weeks I've had it.
>
> - Rich
Rich,
is there a resolution restriction? I thought it does 800x600 max. ?
Out of curiosity: do you have a hyper-threading CPU and does it work
under Linux?
Thanks,
MIKE...