On Aug 19 2001, Abner Gershon wrote:
> I am building a new computer (a first for me) and will be using an
> Abit KT7A motherboard with Athlon 1.3 Ghz cpu.
Perhaps you'd like to see http://cr.yp.to/hardware/abit.html
before purchasing your new motherboard.
Be careful that VIA chipsets are an almost necessary evil if
you go the AMD route: there are a lot of complaints of them in
the Linux Kernel Mailing list these past months. Now, Alan Cox
says that he discovered some "contacts" in VIA and that
they're willing to help support VIA products with Linux in.
Of course, you could buy a motherboard with an AMD chipset
(like the 760 or the 760MP if you're into dual-processing),
but you'll have a bit more of problems getting them from your
local dealear than with a VIA board, since the AMD ones are
more expensive and produced in lesser quantities.
Personally, I'm using an Asus A7V purchased in December of
2000 with no problems.
BTW, an advice: I have the impression (note that this is just
my *impression* and not a fact) that the Promise controller
embedded in my board is slighly better (and produces less
load) than the VIA IDE controller controlling the same hard
drive.
To use the Promise controller (which supports UDMA 100),
you'll either have to use a patch from André Hedrick
<www.linux-ide.org> or use a recent (2.4) kernel.
> I would appreciate recommendations for a video card which could be
> auto detected or at least very easy to install for X window system.
I must say that I think that this is one of the hardest parts
in understanding and purchasing for anybody that is outside
the "scene".
It took me months to understand only the minimum of
specifications on sites like Tomshardware and Anandtech to
decide where to spend my hard earned bucks with something that
would work well with Linux (since that's the only operating
system that I use).
I think that you should get either a Matrox G400 (or G450) or,
if you want better 3D performance and a bunch of other
high-end features, an ATI Radeon (there are some value models
of the ATI Radeon, but I don't know very much of their product
lines).
Both Matrox and ATI are reasonably open source-friendly (with
some slight exceptions, mainly regarding TV Out) and these are
the manufacturers with which you should make business. ATI,
BTW, seems to be supporting many open source projects.
Personally, I have a Matrox G400 and I'm satisfied with it,
but I don't play games and don't know if they are good for
those things. What I do care about is some good performance in
2D and playing videos (DIVX, DVDs).
BTW, bear in mind that you won't be able to use these advanced
cards in their full potential with the X servers that come
with potato. You'll have to upgrade to woody at least (or use
third party compiled packages of X 4.x) to use them well.
> I have tried installing a Linux drive for an NVIDIA Geforce GTS chip
> set on another machine without success.
If you want to use an NVIDIA card, then you'll probably want
to use X 4 with some binary drivers that NVIDIA makes
available.
> Also I want to install a CD-WR internal or CD-rom it must be able to
> be bootable. Thanks.
There are no problems with CD-ROM drives. Anything that speaks
ATAPI (everything produced today) can be used with Linux.
Regarding CD-RW drives, I have an HP9100 (doesn't do
overburning) and I like it a lot. More than my old Ricoh.
> Regarding the video card one of the things I wish to do is edit
> video and convert analog vcr tapes to digital format movies ie mpeg.
I've done this once a few weeks ago with a very precious
video. Unfortunately, the card that I had wasn't supported by
Linux and I had to install Windows *just* for this task (the
card was borrowed from my uncle and I had to return him the
card as soon as possible). It was doable and I converted the
tape to DivX format.
My Duron 600MHz had no trouble compressing what the card
captured with the codec. The best part of this is that the
video is fully playable in Linux and quite well, may I add.
Using libavifile and friends (see sid), I am able to see the
video under Linux, but MPlayer is a better AVI player for
Linux.
> Will I need a seperate card for this pupose or can this be combined
> with card for monitor?
I don't know. I used a separate card for this.
Hope this (long e-mail) helps, Roger...
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Rogério Brito - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito/
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