[gentoo-user] New Hardware...

[gentoo-user] New Hardware...

[Jerry McBride]

Howdy,

I'm gearing up for a new hardware purchase and I find that I need a little 
help figuring out "what is" and "what isn't" linux compatible.

The days of pci, agp video and socket A hardware are slowly coming to a close 
and I'm itching to try something new.

Does anyone here run any cutting edge hardware, like socket am2 motherboards 
and pci-e video cards?

Sounds dumb, but I've no hands on experience with the new stuff and would love 
to hear from those with first hand knowledge. In particular, what hardware 
are you using and how does it work on your desktop? Any driver issues with 
xorg-x11, etc.?

My goal is to build a desktop, taking full advantage of the current available 
video hardware... maybe even use xgl on it too.

Anything would be welcomed. Feel free to email me off list if you desire.

Thanks, Jerry....

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Re: [gentoo-user] New Hardware...

[Richard Fish]

On 7/29/06, Jerry McBride <mcbrides9@comcast.net> wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> I'm gearing up for a new hardware purchase and I find that I need a little
> help figuring out "what is" and "what isn't" linux compatible.

For the most part today, this isn't really a concern [1].  Most
motherboard chipsets, network cards, USB controllers, IEEE1394
controllers, etc are all supported, it is just a matter of selecting
the right kernel options.  The exceptions are mostly wireless chipsets
and graphics cards.

The major problem today is the graphics card.  If you don't mind
proprietary drivers, nvidia is the way to go.  Just make sure you get
a card supported by their current (not legacy) drivers [2].  If you
don't want proprietary drivers, ATI Radeon 9250 boards are still
available and well supported, although I don't know about PCI-e
versions.  Intel integrated graphics chips also have excellent
support, although I have never used one so I can't comment on the
performance.

For wireless, Intel has excellent linux support.

-Richard

[1] http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html
[2] http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-8762/README/appendix-a.html
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Re: [gentoo-user] New Hardware...

[Donnie Berkholz]

Jerry McBride wrote:
> Howdy,
> 
> I'm gearing up for a new hardware purchase and I find that I need a little 
> help figuring out "what is" and "what isn't" linux compatible.
> 
> The days of pci, agp video and socket A hardware are slowly coming to a close 
> and I'm itching to try something new.
> 
> Does anyone here run any cutting edge hardware, like socket am2 motherboards 
> and pci-e video cards?
> 
> Sounds dumb, but I've no hands on experience with the new stuff and would love 
> to hear from those with first hand knowledge. In particular, what hardware 
> are you using and how does it work on your desktop? Any driver issues with 
> xorg-x11, etc.?
> 
> My goal is to build a desktop, taking full advantage of the current available 
> video hardware... maybe even use xgl on it too.
> 
> Anything would be welcomed. Feel free to email me off list if you desire.

As far as video, I would recommend a motherboard with Intel graphics if 
you want to support open source. The latest stuff is roughly equivalent 
to a Radeon 9250. Intel is doing a superb job of supporting open-source 
drivers and is the _only_ company with fully open-source drivers on its 
newest hardware.

If you still want open-source drivers but need better performance, check 
into a Radeon X800 XT or any X### where ### is less than 1000. Those 
will use the reverse-engineered r300 driver.

I cannot recommend any non-Intel graphics outside of the Radeon series 
8500-X850. Nobody in the open-source community will want to help or 
support you if you are using binary drivers, so there's nothing you can 
do if you hit a bug in them.

With the recent news that AMD is buying ATI, perhaps more good news will 
surface that ATI will open up its drivers and specs once again.

Thanks,
Donnie
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Re: [gentoo-user] New Hardware...

[Robert Szentmihalyi]

On Sunday 30 July 2006 04:46, Richard Fish wrote:
> On 7/29/06, Jerry McBride <mcbrides9@comcast.net> wrote:
> > Howdy,
> >
> > I'm gearing up for a new hardware purchase and I find that I need a
> > little help figuring out "what is" and "what isn't" linux compatible.
>
> For the most part today, this isn't really a concern [1].  Most
> motherboard chipsets, network cards, USB controllers, IEEE1394
> controllers, etc are all supported, it is just a matter of selecting
> the right kernel options.  The exceptions are mostly wireless chipsets
> and graphics cards.

According to NVidia's list, as far as I can see, the nForce5 chipset is not 
supported...
Does anyone have any experiences with that?

>
> The major problem today is the graphics card.  If you don't mind
> proprietary drivers, nvidia is the way to go.  Just make sure you get
> a card supported by their current (not legacy) drivers [2].  If you
> don't want proprietary drivers, ATI Radeon 9250 boards are still
> available and well supported, although I don't know about PCI-e
> versions.  Intel integrated graphics chips also have excellent
> support, although I have never used one so I can't comment on the
> performance.
>
> For wireless, Intel has excellent linux support.
>
> -Richard
>
> [1] http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html
> [2]
> http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-8762/README/appendix-a.htm
>l

Robert
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