Hello,
First post.
I’m planning on building a basic system for Haiku. I’m GenX and raised with Apple, always wanted a BeBox when I was young—it seemed so elegant—but I never had one.
Moved towards GNU/Linux, was a sysadmin and web developer for awhile, but last ten years or so I’ve pretty much just been a user. On GNU/Linux I use MATE because when GNOME 3 came out I didn’t like it, still don’t, but at this point the only geek stuff I do is LFS for hobby and LaTeX for typesetting, I’ve mostly become an end user and BeOS (like classic Mac OS and perhaps even moreso) was always an known to be an exceptional end user platform, so I decided it would be fun to give Haiku a shot even if GNU/Linux remains my “main rig” for TeXLive use.
I already have a decent metal case and a quality never used power supply to put in it and a quality never used SATA DVD reader to put in it.
CPU and MoBo combo I’m looking at is:
- Ryzen 5 7000 Series Zen 4 6-Core 3.7 GHz - Socket AM5 65W
- ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2 Socket AM5 Ryzen 7000 Micro ATX Motherboard
Reason for the CPU: Inexpensive for Ryzen, low wattage meaning CPU fan doesn’t have to work as hard, no integrated graphics.
Downsides of course are low wattage usually means less powerful, and no built-in GPU means I have to use a separate GPU.
Reason for MoBo: Supports Socket AM5 7000 series, inexpensive, only has two memory slots but that’s all I need (I’m guessing 2x8GiB is plenty), doesn’t have built-in WiFi (does support a M.2 WiFi card if I ever needed it) which I see as a positive as built-in WiFi is usually a crap chipset that in GNU/Linux requires properierary drivers, I have wired network anyway.
I saw no mention of Bluetooth on newegg but I think that is usually done by WiFi cards and I do not need it. I do not have or use Bluetooth (or WiFi) on my GNU/Linux daily driver either.
From the perspective of Haiku users, is there a reason to avoid the AMD B650 chipset or the ASRock manufacturer?
Onboard audio is Realtek ALC897 via “Nahimic Audio” (whatever the bleep that is). Will standard two-channel stereo audio work in Haiku with that, and if not, can inexpensive USB speakers be used with Haiku?
Onboard LAN is “Dragon RTL8125BG” which allegedly offers 2.5 Gigabit but my LAN equipment (switches, routers) is all Gigabit, so I only need gigabit to work. Does that LAN chipset work with Haiku or am I better off buying a quality LAN card from the start and ignoring the onboard LAN?
Video: I have a “new in box” nVidia (msi) GP108 [GeForce GT 1030] that is fanless and with recent kernels, it works just fine in GNU/Linux with the open source nouveau drivers, at least in MATE and Xfce. It’s the same card I use in my GNU/Linux build, I bought a spare when I built my GNU/Linux system many years ago and the spare has just been sitting on my shelf. Will that card work decently with Haiku or should I look for another? I am not a gamer.
The only downside to that card in GNU/Linux is that because it is fanless, the heat sink is so large it is not recommended to use the expansion slot next to it but other than possibly a LAN card, I do not believe I need additional expanaion cards.
Even though the motherboard supports a M.2 SSD, I’ll probably just use a SATA3 SSD for /boot and a SATA3 platter drive for /boot/home. SATA3 is slower than M.2 but so what? Easier to stick them in an external USB3 case for emergency data recovery.
If I use the M.2 slot at all, it would just be for cache and swap file, not for something I might need to recover if my motherboard fries between backups. Maybe I’ll put the grub partition on an M.2 SSD if that works.
Thank you for any advice!