I’m looking into buying a new system and I wonder which of all the mainboard manufacturers you recommend for Linux in general and gaming in particular? Which ones have the best Linux driver support and which ones publish open source drivers? Are AMD or Intel chipsets preferred?
Also general best bang for the buck recommendations are appreciated!
And yes, I have googled this and I have some ideas, but I’m interested in what my fellow Lemmies think. And I also want this information to be here on Lemmy instead of Reddit or AI generated blogs. If you feel offended by this, you’re totally free to not reply and also down vote this post.
Only potential issues I can forsee are audio driver and networking driver, but I highly doubt either of those will be an issue with any modern motherboard.
I would just buy whatever and install Linux on it. As for which one to buy, just get one from a reputable brand (Gigabyte, ASUS, ASRock, MSI, and whatever else I’m missing).
The CPU and the BIOS/UEFI/other primary bootloader are all that really matter from a software freedom perspective (hardware freedom is a different beast altogether that still has no truly viable solution for 100% freedom from head to toe yet), and unless you go with an old mobo supported by libreboot or canoeboot, then you’re going to have to deal with having Intel ME or AMD PSP, which are segmented processors inside of the CPU that has full memory access and runs proprietary code along with having a proprietary BIOS.
Yeah, I’m only interested in the “least bad” here. Taking usability, libre and performance into account. I don’t think that even the Framework Laptop 13 RISC-V will be completely libre.
Thanks for input though!
is gigabyte a reputable brand tho? i have never had a good gigabyte product, and i have never heard of one either when my friends have owned them. recently made the mistake of buying a gb mobo and it’s such a piece of shit 😅 and i only have myself to blame, all for saving 20€…
I only buy Gigabyte mobos personally.
I’ve had good luck with Gigabyte, but I’ve always considered them an “Intel” brand - as in their Intel offerings are decent but there are better choices if building an AMD system.
My Gigabyte monitor is doing okay.
Interesting, I’ve had 3 Gigabyte MOBOs and GPUs. One GPU died after 6 years, which is unfortunate, but seems reasonable. First MOBO is still going strong 10 years later. Have had no issues otherwise.
odd. maybe they ship worse products to smaller countries or something. i also have a gigabyte gpu and it has been a nightmare since day 1, i regret not returning it. suspected bios problems in both gpu and mobo. i have also seen three different instances of quality issues when my friends have bought gigabyte mobos. DOA, one died within a year, one had loose RAM slots and retailer wouldn’t replace it under warranty…