Linux-Hardware Digest #291, Volume #14 Sat, 3 Feb 01 05:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted... ("Dr. Ram
Samudrala")
Asus 7100 DC (Harald Lettner)
Re: linux printer suggestion please?? (Micah Cowan)
Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted... (Donald White)
Re: ProAudio Sound on Notebook (Dances With Crows)
Re: cannot dial modem through ttySx (John Todd)
USB scanner share IRQ w/modem? (Gary I Kahn)
Re: USB scanner share IRQ w/modem? (Dances With Crows)
Diablo 630 printer setup? (Kirill Sapelkin)
Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted... (Chris Friesen)
Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted... (Bill Polhemus)
Re: linux printer suggestion please?? (Mark Bratcher)
ATI Radeon + Linux (John Tobin)
Re: linux printer suggestion please?? (Paul Rubin)
Re: Overclock system bus ("roybert")
Re: Overclock system bus (Jeff Moore)
Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted... ("Peter T.
Breuer")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Dr. Ram Samudrala" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted...
Date: 3 Feb 2001 01:12:09 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thanks for the input. This is coming along well and I hope it's being
of use to someone besides me. The overall goal of this project is to
have a 512 processor (1 GHz +) cluster over a span of a year or
two. Right now, I'm looking at buying 64 processors.
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote:
>Agreed. But the rtl8139 cards seem to be even faster and more
>reliable (when they are, I daresay).
These cards are made by who? Also please do expound on the "when they
are" comment... is it dependent on the driver release or is it more
stochastic? (:
>> priced around $50-$100, large disks (what is the largest IDE disk
>> supported by Linux today - can I get the Maxtor 80 GB drives?), and
>> dual processors (right now I'm looking at 1 GHz PIIIs -- how reliable
>> are the 1.2 GHz ones?).
>Go for a plain dual asus or abit BX board.
So this brings up another issue. The asus and the abit boards use the
VIA chipset (as opposed to the Intel chipset) on the motherboards. My
vendor suggests that these might not be as stable as the Intel
chipsets. Does anyone have information about this? This is a problem
because right now I'm looking at the SuperMicro DL3 motherboards which
don't have AGP slots (this is okay for the cluster but not for the
desktops).
How do the onboard ethernet controllers on these motherboards work?
What about RAM? Does any ECC RAM work or do certain manufacturers have
better reptutations?
I'm also getting Intel Pentium III chips. Does it make sense to get
other chips instead? I guess I'm bound to Intel because of the SMP
issue right?
--Ram
--
email@urls || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th
\ /
\/ Valine long
\/ and prosper.
------------------------------
From: Harald Lettner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Asus 7100 DC
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 02:23:15 +0100
Hi!
Does anybody know some details about this card?
The Asus-site sucks (as usual) and i can't get any info there.
Is the onboard tuner bttv based?
ciao harald
------------------------------
Subject: Re: linux printer suggestion please??
From: Micah Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 02 Feb 2001 17:46:36 -0800
"MSTR Newsgroup Server" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi,
>
> I've been using a linux machine at work and like the funtionality I get with
> our PostScript capable printer we have. I like to use such utilities such
> as a2ps that output in PostScript.
>
> Now, I want the same functionality in a home Linux printer. Can anyone
> please point me to a Linux printer that can support this. Also, I was
> wondering if there was one out there that supports duplex printing.
>
> So, in Summmary, looking for a linux printer that at least supports:
> 1) PostScript
> 2) Duplex Pinting
> 3) Anything else anyone think is a must? I'm new to this.
>
> Thanks,
> Sammy
Well, the printer itself will support PostScript only if it was built
with that support. Those machines tend to be expensive...
However, any printer which is supported in Linux will allow you to use
any Postscript tools you are used to - because pretty much all
printing in Linux is in Postscript. An' if your printer doesn't
support it, then Linux (via ghostscript) emulates it for you.
Handy, huh?
Micah
------------------------------
From: Donald White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted...
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 19:00:36 -0700
"Dr. Ram Samudrala" wrote:
>
> Thanks for the input. This is coming along well and I hope it's being
> of use to someone besides me. The overall goal of this project is to
> have a 512 processor (1 GHz +) cluster over a span of a year or
> two. Right now, I'm looking at buying 64 processors.
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote:
>
> >Agreed. But the rtl8139 cards seem to be even faster and more
> >reliable (when they are, I daresay).
>
> These cards are made by who? Also please do expound on the "when they
> are" comment... is it dependent on the driver release or is it more
> stochastic? (:
>
> >> priced around $50-$100, large disks (what is the largest IDE disk
> >> supported by Linux today - can I get the Maxtor 80 GB drives?), and
> >> dual processors (right now I'm looking at 1 GHz PIIIs -- how reliable
> >> are the 1.2 GHz ones?).
>
> >Go for a plain dual asus or abit BX board.
>
> So this brings up another issue. The asus and the abit boards use the
> VIA chipset (as opposed to the Intel chipset) on the motherboards. My
> vendor suggests that these might not be as stable as the Intel
> chipsets. Does anyone have information about this? This is a problem
> because right now I'm looking at the SuperMicro DL3 motherboards which
> don't have AGP slots (this is okay for the cluster but not for the
> desktops).
>
> How do the onboard ethernet controllers on these motherboards work?
I have some IBM systems with Intel 82558b chips on the MB. No problems,
10 or 100 Mbps and half or full duplex. Very much like the Intel Pro
100 card.
>
> What about RAM? Does any ECC RAM work or do certain manufacturers have
> better reptutations?
>
I use ECC SDRAM from www.crucial.com in my machines. I never had a
failure and there is a lifetime warranty if one does. It may be
slightly more expensive, but we are in a period of cheap RAM right now.
> I'm also getting Intel Pentium III chips. Does it make sense to get
> other chips instead? I guess I'm bound to Intel because of the SMP
> issue right?
>
> --Ram
>
> --
> email@urls || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th
> \ /
> \/ Valine long
> \/ and prosper.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dances With Crows)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.misc
Subject: Re: ProAudio Sound on Notebook
Date: 3 Feb 2001 02:08:07 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Fri, 02 Feb 2001 01:57:51 -0500, MCheu staggered into the Black Sun
and said:
>They call it the "JBL Pro Audio Bass Reflex", but unfortunately, it
>seems that their customer support people don't have any idea what this
>is. The response was that this was a "PCI sound subsystem", which
>doesn't tell me much. I tried doing a web search, and found some
>info, but it seems that they may have used different chipsets going
>under the name "ProAudio Sound Bass Reflex" in earlier models.
>
>ESS1869
>ESS Solo 1
>VIA 686
>"PCI sound blaster Pro Compatible"
[snip]
"cat /proc/pci" and see for yourself? The ESS Solo (ES1946..?) is
supported in kernel 2.2.18, and the VIA 82cxxx should be supported with
a little tweaking. I think the ESS1869 is also supported. If you can
find the exact model of the chip, it should be relatively easy for
someone to figure out which module you need to load.
--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / Workin' in a code mine, hittin' Ctrl-Alt
http://www.brainbench.com / Workin' in a code mine, whoops!
=============================/ I hit a seg fault....
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Todd)
Subject: Re: cannot dial modem through ttySx
Date: 3 Feb 2001 01:33:40 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yes, of course...minicom. If you send "AT" do
you get "OK" back? If not, you are not "talking" to
your modem yet.
On Sat, 03 Feb 2001 00:13:19 +0000, Darren Davison
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>hi,
>
>I have a modem which works (on a windoze box) connected to a serial port
>that appears to be working since minicom can initialize, reset and hang
>up the modem. However it can't seem to dial it. I'm using the correct
>dial command (ATDT) but the modem utterly fails to acknowledge anything
>and minicom times out on the dial attempt.
>
>If I call the number the modem is on, it answers.
>
>Any ideas how I might start to troubleshoot this, or any pointers to
>software that will allow me to manually fire AT commands at the modem
>and see the response (like HyperTerminal)?
>
>Many thanks in advance,
>Darren.
>
>[TurboLinux 6.0 distro]
--
_____________________
The lap of Linuxury
|<de in RH6
------------------------------
From: Gary I Kahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: USB scanner share IRQ w/modem?
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 21:30:24 -0500
My modem is a PCI modem, and the PCI controller is assigning it to IRQ 9.
I notice that the USB port is also assigned IRQ 9. Does that mean that I
won't be able to use a USB (Epson) scanner while I'm using my modem?
Thanks.
Gary
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dances With Crows)
Subject: Re: USB scanner share IRQ w/modem?
Date: 3 Feb 2001 02:47:10 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 21:30:24 -0500, Gary I Kahn staggered into the Black
Sun and said:
>My modem is a PCI modem, and the PCI controller is assigning it to IRQ
>9. I notice that the USB port is also assigned IRQ 9. Does that mean
>that I won't be able to use a USB (Epson) scanner while I'm using my
>modem?
One feature of the PCI bus is that PCI devices can share interrupts with
other PCI devices. This sharing has limits, but the important one is to
make sure that there's only one device that generates a lot of
interrupts on one IRQ. If you tried to run two Ultra-160 SCSI
controllers, each with 6 disks in softRAID, on IRQ 9, you'd have
problems since the kernel must decide "does this go to card#1 or
card#2?" every time IRQ 9 is triggered, the decision slows things down,
and you could suffer severe slowdown and/or data loss.
If this modem is a hardware modem, it probably generates ~1 interrupt
every time a byte is sent or received. The USB device (probably)
generates lots fewer than that--at least when I tried a USB printer on
my box, it generated about 1500 interrupts per page printed.
Practical upshot is, try it out. If it doesn't work at all, move the
modem to a different PCI slot and see if you can get it to settle on a
free IRQ.
--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / Workin' in a code mine, hittin' Ctrl-Alt
http://www.brainbench.com / Workin' in a code mine, whoops!
=============================/ I hit a seg fault....
------------------------------
From: Kirill Sapelkin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Diablo 630 printer setup?
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 02:58:33 GMT
Hello !
Does anybody use an old diablo 630 as a serial printer on linux?
I would very much like to be able to set mine up.
Can't seem to get the stty settings right.
Thanks for any help.
--
Kirill Sapelkin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Chris Friesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted...
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 03:10:36 GMT
I've had good luck with RTL8139-based cards, which can be had around here as
cheap as $12 for 10/100 full duplex autosensing. Really hard to beat that kind
of bang for buck. However, I have no figures on CPU utilization compared to the
more expensive cards.
As for large disks, I have had no problems with IBM drives. The 75GXP series is
lovely, and they're bulletproof. If speed is an issue, you could get two
smaller ones, otherwise you could partition the larger one appropriately. With
lots of RAM, disk speed becomes less of an issue, and one big disk is cheaper
than two smaller ones.
Video cards...the Matrox cards have really great output, but the Nvidia ones are
faster. The GeForce2 MX cards are not known for the quality of their 2D output,
but the more expensive cards can be very good.
I would suggest using good quality memory--Crucial, Corsair, and the like. You
might even consider ECC on the servers though it costs about 2% in performance.
Chris
--
Have a question about digital photography?
Try looking in the FAQ first: http://rpdfaq.50megs.com
------------------------------
From: Bill Polhemus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted...
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 21:30:12 -0600
Just to let you know, I bought a Linksys NC100 PCI card from Office Depot for
fifteen bucks. It's Fast Ethernet, and seems to have a pretty good pedigree.
Anyway, I did discover that the installable driver module that is required for
this card, tulip.o, was out-of-date as it came with my Red Hat 7.0 boxed set
package.
Now, bear in mind that I am N-O-T a programmer by anyone's loosest definition,
but I can follow a recipe. In this case, I followed the instructions posted on
Red Hat's website, which led me to a developer's page dealing with drivers for
this particular family of cards. I followed their instructions to the letter,
dl'd the SRPM for the driver, compiled and installed it and *voila*! Worked like
a charm!
I'm not suggesting that YOU do this, my only point is that the Red Hat distro at
any rate works quite well with bargain-basement hardware of this kind. The
machine I'm talking about is the email and webserver for my business, and it is
doing the job quite well.
"Dr. Ram Samudrala" wrote:
>
> I'm buying a whole bunch of machines and I would appreciate some help
> on what the current best choices are for various hardware options
> since I've been out of the Linux loop for a few months.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark Bratcher)
Subject: Re: linux printer suggestion please??
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 03:27:39 GMT
Sammy,
If you don't mind giving up the postscript part, I would recommend an
IBM Network Printer 17. We picked one up from www.egghead.com for about
$600. Nice printer. It does PCL/5e which works great with ghostscript.
Mark
On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:59:02 -0800, MSTR Newsgroup Server
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I've been using a linux machine at work and like the funtionality I get with
>our PostScript capable printer we have. I like to use such utilities such
>as a2ps that output in PostScript.
>
>Now, I want the same functionality in a home Linux printer. Can anyone
>please point me to a Linux printer that can support this. Also, I was
>wondering if there was one out there that supports duplex printing.
>
>So, in Summmary, looking for a linux printer that at least supports:
>1) PostScript
>2) Duplex Pinting
>3) Anything else anyone think is a must? I'm new to this.
>
>Thanks,
>Sammy
>
>
------------------------------
From: John Tobin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ATI Radeon + Linux
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 21:36:08 -0600
Has anyone successfully gotten the Radeon working with X in at least 2D?
I have an AMD Athlon 650 on the irongate chipset. I just swapped out my
G400 for the Radeon and installed X 4.02 and the server goes to change
into SVGA mode and then I get the good ole BSOD. If anyone knows of a
fix please let me know.
John
------------------------------
From: Paul Rubin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: linux printer suggestion please??
Date: 02 Feb 2001 20:17:51 -0800
Micah Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > So, in Summmary, looking for a linux printer that at least supports:
> > 1) PostScript
> > 2) Duplex Pinting
> > 3) Anything else anyone think is a must? I'm new to this.
The only cheap printer I know of that supports duplex printing is the
HP 970 deskjets including the Photosmart P1218 or whatever they call
it now. There are laser printers with duplex options, but those cost
more. Postscript in a printer also costs more, though you can
simulate it with GhostScript.
------------------------------
From: "roybert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Overclock system bus
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 05:58:05 GMT
Your memory will be fine, and I have seen this work on quality CPUs, but
since Cyrix chips are known pieces of crap, you will just have to try it and
see if your system runs stable.
"Jeff Moore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I just bought some new dimms, and flashed my bios for a new hard drive,
> 20gb.
>
> One of the dimms I bought is a Smart Modular Tech PC100 32mb
> unregistered dimm.
>
> Can I change my bus clock this way and it work?
>
> Go from Cyrix PR200MMX, 75mhz X2
>
> to Cyrix PR200MMX, 100mhz X1.5
>
> This dimm now reads on my 75mhz bus as a 8mb, if I change my bus clock
> will this make it read at 32mb?
>
> Jeff Moore
>
------------------------------
From: Jeff Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Overclock system bus
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 02:39:11 +0000
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yes, it worked being clocked at 100mhz.
Thank You
Jeff Moore
roybert wrote:
> Your memory will be fine, and I have seen this work on quality CPUs, but
> since Cyrix chips are known pieces of crap, you will just have to try it and
> see if your system runs stable.
>
> "Jeff Moore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > I just bought some new dimms, and flashed my bios for a new hard drive,
> > 20gb.
> >
> > One of the dimms I bought is a Smart Modular Tech PC100 32mb
> > unregistered dimm.
> >
> > Can I change my bus clock this way and it work?
> >
> > Go from Cyrix PR200MMX, 75mhz X2
> >
> > to Cyrix PR200MMX, 100mhz X1.5
> >
> > This dimm now reads on my 75mhz bus as a 8mb, if I change my bus clock
> > will this make it read at 32mb?
> >
> > Jeff Moore
> >
------------------------------
From: "Peter T. Breuer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Recommendations for ethernet cards and other hardware wanted...
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 10:41:32 +0100
In comp.os.linux.hardware Dr. Ram Samudrala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> of use to someone besides me. The overall goal of this project is to
> have a 512 processor (1 GHz +) cluster over a span of a year or
> two. Right now, I'm looking at buying 64 processors.
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote:
>>Agreed. But the rtl8139 cards seem to be even faster and more
>>reliable (when they are, I daresay).
> These cards are made by who? Also please do expound on the "when they
RTL8139 cards are packaged by most anybody. I even walked into
eisystems yesterday and saw oem packs labelled as RTL8139. I don't
recall which brandname we usually get. Genius? Gentus? SOmething like
that.
> are" comment... is it dependent on the driver release or is it more
> stochastic? (:
Eepro100 cards can be wonky. About 20% of the ones I have show bad
characteristics (such as stopping working after 24hrs, so that they
have to be reset by a driver rmmod insmod every 12 hours as a
preventative measure). Mind you, I haven't been tracking how old these
cards are .. they could be up to three years old. I haven't checked
which drivers are best for them either. Too many variables. The cards
also seem only to be able to get about 60% of the available bandwidth,
even on switched 100BT networks.
OTOH the rtl8139 cards I have have never given trouble any time. And
they use about 100% bandwidth. But given their amazingly cheap price
(about $25 ?) I expect to find someday that I have received a batch of
no-hopers. Fine .. I'll can that when it arrives.
There are three versions of the rtl8139 that I know of, and the latest
versions don work with drivers for the earlier versions.
>>> priced around $50-$100, large disks (what is the largest IDE disk
>>> supported by Linux today - can I get the Maxtor 80 GB drives?), and
>>> dual processors (right now I'm looking at 1 GHz PIIIs -- how reliable
>>> are the 1.2 GHz ones?).
>>Go for a plain dual asus or abit BX board.
> So this brings up another issue. The asus and the abit boards use the
> VIA chipset (as opposed to the Intel chipset) on the motherboards. My
I do not believe they do - they are BX boards! Mind you, I cannot check
right now.
> vendor suggests that these might not be as stable as the Intel
> chipsets. Does anyone have information about this? This is a problem
> because right now I'm looking at the SuperMicro DL3 motherboards which
> don't have AGP slots (this is okay for the cluster but not for the
> desktops).
> How do the onboard ethernet controllers on these motherboards work?
I don't have one (otoh I have onboard scsi on the asus dual bx boards,
and it works fine).
> What about RAM? Does any ECC RAM work or do certain manufacturers have
> better reptutations?
I am not using ECC ram - too difficult to get hold of and impossible to
mix later. I only have bad ram when ram is in short market supply - but
of course I don't know for sure :-). Nevertheless my experience is that
once ram has been tested thoroughly, bit errors do not come from ram
but from overheated cpus.
> I'm also getting Intel Pentium III chips. Does it make sense to get
> other chips instead? I guess I'm bound to Intel because of the SMP
No, it makes no sense.
> issue right?
Yes.
Peter
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Hardware Digest
******************************
