Just a general question about opensuse on "modern" hardware

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1

Well I’ve been looking for a linux distro to use as the only OS and find that waiting for opensuse 12.1 to come seems to suit my needs best.

Here are some of the concerns I have about the hardware I own and Linux. I’ve tried to find info on the topics and there is quite a bit, but first of all it’s kind of oldish and it’s scattered everywhere. Most of the questions probably aren’t opensuse specific but need answers.

I use a Asrock p67 Fatal1ty Pro motherboard. Will the USB 3 ports work. These ones are powered by an Etron chip and I’ve read about some problems. Is this been addressed in the newest kernel? The other thing of course is the UEFI “thing”. I really don’t know anything about this - just that grub isn’t doing very well - especially grub 2 with some bugs. Can someone explain to me the whole issue? I’ll really appreciate it. I’ve seen the new “UEFI bioses” and the new GPT discs talked as they are the same thing which confuses me more. I know it can be made to work, but will it work “out of the box” with opensuse? What will be the steps needed if not? All the new hardware(motherboards) is moving in this direction for one reason or another.

The other thing is the ssd support as a whole in linux. I own an intel 510 ssd. This is actually a lot more clear to me but I still maybe need some clarifications. I think of using ext4 and do nothing but mount with discard option. I’ve seen moving some directories off the ssd as a tweak but don’t really know what to think about it. Does linux generally writes more on the drive than a typical windows 7 and hence the tweaks? Or is it just everyone being too conservative on the write capacity of the new ssds? Using the noatime option seem high on the list of suggestions too. How much writes does this actually prevents? The other thing I remember reading somewhere is the way the ssds handle trim commands is optimized for only NTFS? Should I consider this being true?

I’ll probably come with a few more questions later.

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With really new hardware it is always problem to get someone else to pop in and say for sure it if works or not. I did some searching and found some, but not much.

I use a Asrock p67 Fatal1ty Pro motherboard. Will the USB 3 ports work.

So USB 3.0 does work with Linux but apparently, there was some sort of issue with the Etron chipset, that was not fixed as of kernel 3.0-rc1, but kernel 3.0 is out and kernel 3.1 will be out shortly, but I can only say that perhaps it might work. The problem was identified according to what I had found.

The other thing of course is the UEFI “thing”. I really don’t know anything about this - just that grub isn’t doing very well - especially grub 2 with some bugs.

You should have the option to boot up conventionally else very little beside Windows 7 could be used. It does depend on how this motherboard was configured and if it still contains any portion of a conventional BIOS, but most do today.

I’ve seen the new “UEFI bioses” and the new GPT discs talked as they are the same thing which confuses me more. I know it can be made to work, but will it work “out of the box” with opensuse? What will be the steps needed if not? All the new hardware(motherboards) is moving in this direction for one reason or another.

Today, unless you are using the very latest partitioning, required to use large hard drives such as the 3 TeraByte versions, normal partitioning and booting will be supported. If you want to use Linux, I would stay away for now very large hard drives and the partitioning required to support them.

The other thing is the ssd support as a whole in linux. I own an intel 510 ssd.

SSD’s work great with openSUSE. The first Intel SSD I purchased had to have a firmware update before I could boot openSUSE from it, so look for such updates on any brand SSD. Check out the following thread on using an SSD with openSUSE:

Using a SSD Hard Drive with openSUSE and the TRIM Command

This is actually a lot more clear to me but I still maybe need some clarifications. I think of using ext4 and do nothing but mount with discard option. I’ve seen moving some directories off the ssd as a tweak but don’t really know what to think about it. Does linux generally writes more on the drive than a typical windows 7 and hence the tweaks? Or is it just everyone being too conservative on the write capacity of the new ssds? Using the noatime option seem high on the list of suggestions too. How much writes does this actually prevents? The other thing I remember reading somewhere is the way the ssds handle trim commands is optimized for only NTFS? Should I consider this being true?

I have seen nothing that suggests SSD’s wear out faster with Linux. EXT4 and Trim work together, so that is what I would use on a SSD in openSUSE. Other combinations might not work as well under Linux, but if you want a Windows partition on it, just don’t mount it in Linux. Do consider the SSD size, they are expensive and really small partitions can run out of room fast so consider what you are doing before you buy that SSD.

I use two 120 GB Corsair SATA III versions, one for the main / openSUSE OS and one for /home. It works very well for me and two 120 GB’s was cheaper that one 240 GB, at least for now.

Thank You,

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Thanks for the directions. It really helped and cleared some of the things for me.

I really think this kind of hardware shouldn’t be considered the cutting edge. It’s been out for like a year or so now. But of course I can see where the problem maybe is - the manufacturers of the hardware themselves don’t provide the needed information in order for someone to be able to write the drivers, and not that there aren’t enough people out there ready to write everything ASAP. Probably in many areas it’s just hit and miss for the most part. Anyway that’s just my opinion.

And just to make sure I’ve managed to understand everything UEFI related. The fact that the motherboards for the sandybridge platform(and some others now) have been known to have UEFI(EFI 2.0 ?) they still support the legacy “bios booting”. I couldn’t care less at the moment for the ways to make it to boot in “EFI mode” if the old way of doing things is the safest for now. But I don’t really see any options in BIOS/UEFI or whatever I’m supposed to call it, to allow switching between the different boot modes. Before I couldn’t differentiate between somehow changing the way booting is handled and changing the bios itself - messing the new GUI uefi is offering, or flash it with something completely modified and loosing lots of the overclocking options for instance.

As far as SSDs go - I have the 120GB version. It should be plenty for me because i have two other conventional hard drives with some good capacity - 640GB and 2TB. Just haven’t made my mind yet on how to use them. As far as I know the firmware is the latest available(and the only one). Any comments on the use of noatime?

I really feel more comfortable now. Just hoping USB ports will work too.
I don’t actually know why I want to leave the “windows” world. Probably just need a bit more fun with the system than what I’m offered now.

4

Thanks for the directions. It really helped and cleared some of the things for me.

I really think this kind of hardware shouldn’t be considered the cutting edge. It’s been out for like a year or so now. But of course I can see where the problem maybe is - the manufacturers of the hardware themselves don’t provide the needed information in order for someone to be able to write the drivers, and not that there aren’t enough people out there ready to write everything ASAP. Probably in many areas it’s just hit and miss for the most part. Anyway that’s just my opinion.

And just to make sure I’ve managed to understand everything UEFI related. The fact that the motherboards for the sandybridge platform(and some others now) have been known to have UEFI(EFI 2.0 ?) they still support the legacy “bios booting”. I couldn’t care less at the moment for the ways to make it to boot in “EFI mode” if the old way of doing things is the safest for now. But I don’t really see any options in BIOS/UEFI or whatever I’m supposed to call it, to allow switching between the different boot modes. Before I couldn’t differentiate between somehow changing the way booting is handled and changing the bios itself - messing the new GUI uefi is offering, or flash it with something completely modified and loosing lots of the overclocking options for instance.

As far as SSDs go - I have the 120GB version. It should be plenty for me because i have two other conventional hard drives with some good capacity - 640GB and 2TB. Just haven’t made my mind yet on how to use them. As far as I know the firmware is the latest available(and the only one). Any comments on the use of noatime?

I really feel more comfortable now. Just hoping USB ports will work too.
I don’t actually know why I want to leave the “windows” world. Probably just need a bit more fun with the system than what I’m offered now.

My top computer has a uEFI “BIOS” which works just fine with Linux. While not technically a BIOS anymore, I think that most will still call it that. Here is a nice reference on using a GPD disk Partition in Linux, required for very large hard drives:

Linux Creating a Partition Size Larger Than 2TB

The issue with Linux is not being able to read such a partition, but GPD is not enabled by default in the kernel and the grub legacy boot loader used by openSUSE does not support a GPD partition for booting at all, so it can not be the boot drive. Going with a SSD will most likely prevent this from being an issue for a long time for lots of reasons. I started off with an Intel 80 GB SSD, but eventually had to split out my /home area due to its size. Later, I went with a 120 GB SSD, and I did make it OK, but I was constantly having to remove unneeded files and such to stay within the 120 GB limit. Now I have two 120 GB drives and that is working very nicely with / on one and /home on the other. I do use the two added options “noatime,discard” on all EXT4 partitions created on my SSD drives.

As for Windows, purest will shun dual booting with Windows, but I still do so for those tasks that only work with Windows. If you need real Windows, VirtualBox does work well under openSUSE for running Windows 7 I have found. For running Windows in the real world, I would dedicate a whole hard drive to Windows. By keeping openSUSE off of the Windows hard drive, lots of complications are not present and the openSUSE grub bootloader has no problem running Windows from a separate hard drive. Such a combo will always run Windows without openSUSE if you make it the boot hard drive in your BIOS setup. Windows will always allow you to install the latest service pack when the Windows partition is marked active for booting. And finally, the Windows drive setup can affect the ability to use the Windows backup Utility if the Windows drive is not as it was setup by Windows. I have also found one other oddity with Windows 7. The small boot loader partition Windows 7 creates may not work with backups if you have too many hard drive partitions, even if everything else is good. Taking this partition from 100 MB to 499 MB has fixed that problem. This is something you must do manually after the Windows install. Ask for more info if you want to try this.

Thank You,