Broken mobo and OS

At last, I have new replacement mobo for my desktop PC. It's budget GA-M61P-S3. The old one was hanging occasionally and causing hardisk data corruption. It was older GA model M55Plus, still having warranty. So far so good.

I booted my Ubuntu linux and then came first insight- both mobos look similar but have different onboard gfx, ethernet and audio chips. And that caused that my nvidia driver is hanging at boot time. I switched temporarily to generic vesa driver, and tried to fix OS. Then I've realized that ethernet and audio isn't working either. I used available ubuntu stricted driver packages with previous mobo and it just worked. That was good experience- no time waste, desktop linux for the people etc.

I've tried to use nothing more than that existing Ubuntu packages. After day of searching and trying to find working solution, I gave up.

So here comes plan B. I downloaded drivers from nvidia and realtek site. After checking prerequisities I started instalation scripts. It worked like charm. But I still don't have sound. I had to download the newest alsa sources and install it manually too. Now everything works fine except onboard ethernet port. I've used old PCI card in that place. Maybe new forcedeth driver will fix that in future.

I have to admit it took me some time, but it was good time. Everyone who sometimes hacks linux system knows that feeling. Linux newbies or just usual desktop users may have other opinion. Let's think about alternative situation- how much time would I spend fixing windows system. Probably it would require windows reinstalation or repair action, then calling microsoft rep to get new activation code, then installing new drivers from mobo packet cd. It's slightly easier and faster way. There is still a little work to do to make linux desktop more user friendly. I believe that linux instalation and upgrade will be easier than now in near future.

The sign on the mobo box says: "Vista ready". But I'm not vista ready yet- It's still not solution for home use. But milions of early adopters will test it and maybe next release will be better. I'm happy that I can choose OS that suits my needs. Do only nerds think in that way?