Hi folks,
I'm building a new system and would like to get some opinions on hardware.
This is primarily a web programmer development system. It's main tasks
will be to emulate the production environment closely, running SQL and web
servers. Part of the development task will include using Gimp and
potentially Blender on a Linux O/S. It will be dual-boot with Win for
compatibility testing purposes. It's secondary and ternary tasks will be
producing a radio show and designing CD covers.
I have chosen to go with the an AMD Athlon 900MHz CPU and initially 133MHz
RAM (due to the high cost of DDR). I am unfamiliar with the FPU on an AMD
and how well it holds up to intensive floating point calculations such as
those in audio and graphics. If anyone has any thoughts please share them.
My main concern is with the graphics card and monitor combo. I am finding
with a 17" monitor at 1024x768 that I haven't enough screen real estate
even with multiple desktops. Any higher resolution than that and the
refresh rate is not tolerable.
For the new system I would like a 19" monitor capable of 1600x1200 with a
fairly high refresh. I noticed KDS has a model that can handle this at
85Hz and .24mm dot pitch. I love using my current systems monitor at
100Hz with 800x600 and KDE :) My problem is that I do not know how to
interpret color. The monitor I have now is a Sceptre 17". When trying to
use the GUM Calibration images it is non-correctable. The brightness and
contrast / image temp do not allow me to calibrate it accordingly. I
notice that it appears to have a fairly dark color overall. If anyone can
give me some monitor opinions, or advice on how to determine if a monitor
is able to be calibrated I would appreciate it.
My final request is with the graphics card. I will most likely be
choosing a 32Mb AGP 4x card, which is light years beyond the 4Mb PCI I am
using now. I'm not too concerned about this, as a card is more readily
replaceable than a monitor. What does confuse me is that most cards are
listed with their Windows requirements or Windows compatibility. I run
Linux and X windows as my main system and want to make sure that the card
I get is fully compatible with Linux. I was looking at the ATI XPert 2000
Pro 32Mb-AGP but it is not listed on the redhat hardware compatibility
list. I would also like to note that cost is not a factor with the monitor,
but is a factor with the card.
Also, if anyone has any experiences with online vendors, or at least good
links, I'd like to hear them to :)
Thanks,
Rob
--
Hi! I'm Larry. This is my brother Bob, and this is my other brother
Jimbo. We thought you might like to know the names of your assailants.
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