help needed with PC configuration

[iinfi1]

hi all, i m a bit weak in hardware related stuff.
i am buying a new CPU and following is the config:
1. Processor: AMD Athlon X4 620 & . Motherboard: MSI 785GM-E65 -
3. RAM: Zion DDR 3 ( 2GB DDR3 1333MhZ)

my primary requirement is to run CentOS 64-bit and run VMs inside the same for testing various products/configuration

can some one please let me know if CentOS drivers will be available for the above config ... i mean does the configuration have out of the box support for linux ?

[Siert Zijl]

No problem, but I'm missing a couple of other details, e.g.: storage.

If you want to run multiple VM's I prefer a more RAM.

[iinfi1]

thank you Siert Zijl.
i will use the same box for storing the VMs, as its not anything critical. jus for testing purposes.
yea RAM i am gona buy 6GB. :)

i was only worried about linux drivers for the board and NIC and processor.

thanks you

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

The CPU support is generally not a problem.

This CPU uses the x86_64 architecture, which is a 64-bit evolution of the plain old x86, which has always been the "main" architecture of Linux. So the architecture support is definitely there.

The support for specific CPU model is mostly related to the optimal use of CPU features. Lack of specific support would for a particular CPU model would just mean that the kernel could not optimally use e.g. the power-saving states of the CPU, and the CPU would not run quite as cool as it theoretically could. But this is something most people can live with.

From the MSI web pages, I see that its chipset is AMD 785E (north bridge) + SB710 (south bridge). The integrated NIC is Realtek 8111DL.

Googling for "linux realtek 8111DL" indicates that this NIC apparently is supported in Linux by the "r8169" kernel module, *if* that kernel module has been updated to support PCI-E versions of this NIC chip.

Wikipedia has some useful information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_700_chipset_series

The SATA function in the south bridge uses AHCI design, so it should be well supported in Linux. (AHCI is a completely open standard design for SATA controllers.)

I downloaded and unpacked a CentOS 5.4 kernel source RPM. A huge number of backport patches in there... but a quick grepping indicated that both AMD SB7xx chipset SATA features and and Realtek 8111 NIC seem to be supported.

Just use the latest CentOS 5.4 ISO images for installation, and you should be good to go.

MK

[iinfi1]

thanks a lot for your help.