What kind 64 bit distribution do you guys recommend ?

[platypus_low]

I have been trying out a few major distribution from KuBuntu to OpenSuSe for my new mobo but found none of them stable enough ( strange errors and slow down ) due to no support for the on board graphic cards or some other strange reasons. Can people who have used this motherboard before please suggest any good 64 bit distros I can use ?

Thanks.

[Tsuroerusu]

I have been trying out a few major distribution from KuBuntu to OpenSuSe for my new mobo but found none of them stable enough ( strange errors and slow down ) due to no support for the on board graphic cards or some other strange reasons.

I don't have that much expertise with Kubuntu but it baffles me that it wouldn't work.
Personally, I think openSUSE, and SUSE in general for that matter, is the best choice for a 64-bit distro if you want it to run very very smoothly without codec problems and stuff. And I know that people will report zero problems with Ubuntu etc. and I'm sure that those claims are true, however since SUSE pioneered a lot of the AMD64 support that initially went into the Linux kernel, GCC and glibc I trust that their expertise with the AMD64 platform is very good.

The reason your onboard graphics card was not supported out of the box is because it's an NVIDIA integrated graphics card, and Novell nor the openSUSE project will not include proprietary drivers at all. Novell/SUSE employs a whole bunch of kernel developers and they were getting pissed off about the company that they worked for, in their opinion, violated their copyrights (Greg Kroah-Hartman is probably the most widely known of these Novell/SUSE employed kernel hackers). You can see an article he wrote about these issues here: Myths, Lies, and Truths about the Linux kernel

(Greg Kroah-Hartman He might be a good candidate for an interview, what do you say Mr. Davila?)

So far, Ubuntu, and thereby also Kubuntu, have only included the kernel parts of NVIDIA and ATi's proprietary drivers as part of the default installation, you had to install the nvidia-glx package to get the X libraries and OpenGL implementation etc. etc.

In the next release they will also include the X libraries and enable the proprietary drivers by default, which I, personally, am not that fond of. I think that there should be ways to both respect the GPL, and make things easy for new users. But hey, what can I do, right?

I would recommend trying out openSUSE 10.2 if you havn't already. If the open source "nv" driver is not sufficient for what you require, and if you don't mind proprietary drivers (Which I do, when it comes down to my own personal use) you can find instructions on installing the proprietary NVIDIA drivers here: Nvidia Installer HOWTO for SUSE LINUX users

Can people who have used this motherboard before please suggest any good 64 bit distros I can use ?

Also, which versions of Kubuntu and openSUSE did you try? I say always try out the latest stable versions.

[Patrick]

I've been running Kubuntu on my AMD64 system since August and have been pretty happy with it. Like Troels said you have install the Nvidia driver separately which is common for most distros.

[allix]

choosing a 64 bit distro is no different to a 32 bit distro or linux on any architecture really.
Sticking to intel and amd chips as thats what i am sure you mean, not a sparc64 ?

anway, ive personally used Slamd64, its slackware re-compiled for 64 bit machines
http://www.slamd64.com/
Currently i am using Gentoo 64 and its great , if you have the Gentoo vibe go for it, you won't be dissapointed.


You could also try out on the BSD side FreeBSD, NetBSD ( the first operating system to have a amd64 port) or OpenBSD.

Whatever you install good luck

[Tsuroerusu]

choosing a 64 bit distro is no different to a 32 bit distro or linux on any architecture really.
Sticking to intel and amd chips as thats what i am sure you mean, not a sparc64 ?

It both is and it isn't, because you can run any 32-bit distro on a 64-bit machine, etc. The thing that makes 64-bit a little different is in the area of compatibility. So far, Adobe has not released a 64-bit binary of the Flash plugin, which means that you have to run the 32-bit version of Firefox in order to use the 32-bit plugin. If a distro is purely 64-bit, then you have a problem, especially if you can't install the 32-bit version of X app for some compatibility etc.
What SUSE has done since day one is that they set people up with 32-bit versions of Firefox and generally made sure that things just worked, and that you didn't run into any sort of problems.

This Flash example is just a very common one, I'm sure there are tons of other real life examples out there.

You could also try out on the BSD side FreeBSD, NetBSD ( the first operating system to have a amd64 port) or OpenBSD.

Whatever you install good luck

Yet another option in the wealth of free software!