[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Dave Crossland]

Hi,

I'm in the UK and would like to buy a workstation that can be 100%
Free Software, using gNewSense and a Free Software BIOS - ie,
LinuxBIOS - and am not sure where to turn.

Any idea? :-)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [e-mail] 
Date: 09-Nov-2006 09:44
Subject: Re: http://linuxbios.org
To: Dave Crossland

Thursday, November 9, 2006, 1:31:53 AM, you wrote:
> Hi,
> I would like to buy a workstation that supports 100% Free Software,
> including a Free Software BIOS. That is, something listed as fully
> supported on http://linuxbios.org/Supported_Motherboards
> I could not see an easy way to tell this from your website.

Hello Dave,

I've checked that list and you'll find all those boards are quite old,
i.e. socket 754, 940 and 604 which have been replaced some time ago.

None of our motherboards support the BIOS and we don't plan to offer
systems with this support.

Regards,
Lee
____________________________________________________________________
Digital Networks United Kingdom                         www.dnuk.com
Linux workstations, servers and storage                [e-mail]

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[David H. Barr]

On 11/9/06, Dave Crossland  wrote:
> I'm in the UK and would like to buy a workstation that can be 100%
> Free Software, using gNewSense and a Free Software BIOS - ie,
> LinuxBIOS - and am not sure where to turn.

Dave,

This is, as LB topics go, a "hot" one right now.  From the
linixuxbios.org/desktops page: "Currently there is not much support
for cheap, mainstream desktop mainboards in LinuxBIOS. We intend to
change that"

Specifically, some of us right now are trying to figure out which
board meets the following characteristics:
 - Socket AM2
 - nVidia MCP 500 series
 - Widely available
 - Inexpensive

I personally think we will have this nailed in the MSI K9N Neo-F "Real
Soon Now"; waiting for a certain package to arrive in the mail.

There's also talk on the lists (http://linuxbios.org/Mailinglist ,
check archive) of a few other boards with similar characteristics.
Nothing concrete and working as yet, though.

HTH,
-dhb.

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Dave Crossland]

On 09/11/06, David H. Barr  wrote:
> I personally think we will have this nailed in the MSI K9N Neo-F "Real
> Soon Now"; waiting for a certain package to arrive in the mail.

What are the chances for Intel boards, since Intel are the only
graphics card vendor with Free drivers at the moment?

I guess I'll get a cheapo P4 Dell with i950 graphics for now, and stay
turned for my next upgrade.

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Richard Smith]

Dave Crossland wrote:
> What are the chances for Intel boards, since Intel are the only

Very low...
> graphics card vendor with Free drivers at the moment?

Intel graphics drivers are not free. The are just more free than AIT and
Nvidia.

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Richard Smith wrote:
> Dave Crossland wrote:
> > What are the chances for Intel boards, since Intel are the only
>
> Very low...
> > graphics card vendor with Free drivers at the moment?
>
> Intel graphics drivers are not free. The are just more free than AIT and
> Nvidia.

The open source ATI radeon r200 and r300 drivers have remarkable quality,
although r300 was the product of reverse engineering. The r300 series
cards are fast enough for anything you might want to run and they are
still available in stores. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R300
for a list of adapters of this family.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Dave Crossland]

On 10/11/06, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger  wrote:
> > > graphics card vendor with Free drivers at the moment?
>
> The open source ATI radeon r200 and r300 drivers have remarkable quality,
> although r300 was the product of reverse engineering. The r300 series
> cards are fast enough for anything you might want to run and they are
> still available in stores. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R300
> for a list of adapters of this family.

Okay great - thank you!

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Dave Crossland]

On 09/11/06, Richard Smith  wrote:
> Dave Crossland wrote:
> > What are the chances for Intel boards, since Intel are the only
>
> Very low...

:-(
> > graphics card vendor with Free drivers at the moment?
>
> Intel graphics drivers are not free. The are just more free than AIT and
> Nvidia.

http://intellinuxgraphics.org/license.html says its all "GPL and
additional rights" and "X.org MIT license". Whats not free about this?

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Richard Smith]

Dave Crossland wrote:
> > Intel graphics drivers are not free. The are just more free than AIT and
> > Nvidia.
>
> http://intellinuxgraphics.org/license.html says its all "GPL and
> additional rights" and "X.org MIT license". Whats not free about this?

Sorry bad choice of words on my part.. I meant not fully open source and
not totally free of binary cruft.

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115536806403908&w=2

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Dave Crossland]

On 10/11/06, Richard Smith  wrote:
> Sorry bad choice of words on my part.. I meant not fully open source and
> not totally free of binary cruft.
>
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115536806403908&w=2

Ouch. When he says, "The driver remains completely functional in the
absense of the binary piece", surely some functionality is missing -
what is this? I don't understand enough (yet) to know from that post
:-(

Also, my local PC builder says:

-- 8< --
I cannot find any seller of the motherboard, it may be obselete, or even not
released in the UK yet
Looking at the spec of the board it is a dual cpu board of very high spec.
Boards of this Spec we have used in the past have been £300-£400
2 Cpus will be in the region of £500
I don't really consider this to be a workstation setup.
Do you want to go to this VERY high spec?
-- 8< --

Any suggestions? :-)

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Al Boldi]

Dave Crossland wrote:
> On 10/11/06, Richard Smith  wrote:
> > Sorry bad choice of words on my part.. I meant not fully open source and
> > not totally free of binary cruft.
> >
> > http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115536806403908&w=2
>
> Ouch. When he says, "The driver remains completely functional in the
> absense of the binary piece", surely some functionality is missing -
> what is this? I don't understand enough (yet) to know from that post

It means that you get basic access to the device w/o being able to take 
advantage of the more advanced features.  Probably due to them 
subcontracting a third-party to do the advanced stuff.

Thanks!

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Ward Vandewege]

On Fri, Nov 10, 2006 at 02:10:50PM +0300, Al Boldi wrote:
> Dave Crossland wrote:
> > On 10/11/06, Richard Smith  wrote:
> > > Sorry bad choice of words on my part.. I meant not fully open source and
> > > not totally free of binary cruft.
> > >
> > > http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115536806403908&w=2
> >
> > Ouch. When he says, "The driver remains completely functional in the
> > absense of the binary piece", surely some functionality is missing -
> > what is this? I don't understand enough (yet) to know from that post
>
> It means that you get basic access to the device w/o being able to take 
> advantage of the more advanced features.  Probably due to them 
> subcontracting a third-party to do the advanced stuff.

Anyone know what exactly the advanced stuff is?

Thanks,
Ward.

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Ward Vandewege  [061110 14:05]:
> > It means that you get basic access to the device w/o being able to take 
> > advantage of the more advanced features.  Probably due to them 
> > subcontracting a third-party to do the advanced stuff.
>
> Anyone know what exactly the advanced stuff is?

Macrovision registers. That's DRM.

And "other trade secrets"

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Segher Boessenkool]

> > > Ouch. When he says, "The driver remains completely functional in the
> > > absense of the binary piece", surely some functionality is missing -
> > > what is this? I don't understand enough (yet) to know from that post
> >
> > It means that you get basic access to the device w/o being able to  
> > take
> > advantage of the more advanced features.  Probably due to them
> > subcontracting a third-party to do the advanced stuff.
>
> Anyone know what exactly the advanced stuff is?

Macrovision DRM amongst others.  The Intel drivers also
still need a binary BIOS for modesetting, at least on
some chips.

Segher

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Dave Crossland  [061109 12:14]:
> Hi,
>
> I'm in the UK and would like to buy a workstation that can be 100%
> Free Software, using gNewSense and a Free Software BIOS - ie,
> LinuxBIOS - and am not sure where to turn.

Yeah, there are plenty of good workstation boards supported by 
LinuBIOS. The latest and greatest is definitely the  
MSI K9SD Master-S2R (MS-9185)

Other than that there is a list available here:
http://www.linuxbios.org/Supported_Motherboards

Stefan

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Dave Crossland]

On 09/11/06, Stefan Reinauer  wrote:
> Yeah, there are plenty of good workstation boards supported by
> LinuBIOS. The latest and greatest is definitely the
> MSI K9SD Master-S2R (MS-9185)

Okay awesome - I'll make enquiries at my local custom built PC shop.

Whats the recommend 3d graphics card with Free drivers for such a motherboard?

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[Lionel Elie Mamane]

On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 03:21:58PM +0100, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Dave Crossland  [061109 12:14]:
> > I'm in the UK and would like to buy a workstation that can be 100%
> > Free Software, using gNewSense and a Free Software BIOS - ie,
> > LinuxBIOS - and am not sure where to turn.
> Yeah, there are plenty of good workstation boards supported by
> LinuBIOS. The latest and greatest is definitely the MSI K9SD
> Master-S2R (MS-9185)

Also http://linuxbios.org/Products#Tyan_Computer says:

Tyan (http://www.tyan.com/) offers LinuxBIOS on all their Opteron
based products.

Have bought (myself or made people that asked for advice buy) three
Tyan motherboards up to now just because of this statement :)

[LinuxBIOS] Advice for buying a new and not-obsolete workstation?

[ron minnich]

On 11/27/06, Lionel Elie Mamane  wrote:
> Also http://linuxbios.org/Products#Tyan_Computer says:
>
> Tyan (http://www.tyan.com/) offers LinuxBIOS on all their Opteron
> based products.
>
> Have bought (myself or made people that asked for advice buy) three
> Tyan motherboards up to now just because of this statement :)

I think we will have to remove that statement. LB works on all the
mobos but I don't think they support it any more.

thanks

ron