[clue-tech] Nvidia Nforce4 Status

[Mike Staver]

I'm thinking about throwing together a cheap server with a dual-core AMD 
socket 939 cpu, and an nforce4 based motherboard.  Specifically, I was 
looking at this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131570

It can do RAID 5, which is something I want to try under Linux, which I 
have never done.  I have several questions:

1) Is anybody out there running linux kernel 2.6 on an nforce4 product 
with success? I'm not looking for great 3D graphics, etc - just the bare 
minimum command line display, I don't care about sound - but obviously 
networking is important for a small web server.

2) Let's say I get the RAID 5 working - then let's say my my motherboard 
catches on fire and never works again.  Am I screwed with the RAID? 
Basically, I want to know if I would be able to take this raid config 
and plug it into an identical board and have it work. I realize I'd have 
to set up the array in the bios - but my concern is that when I do so, 
it will blank the drives rather than use the existing setup.  If I could 
plug in an identical board, then I might consider buying two of these 
boards as a future backup plan.
-- 

                                 -Mike Staver
                                  staver at fimble.com
                                  mstaver at globaltaxnetwork.com