Ok, I'm curious about hardware recommendations before I buy the parts for my linux machine. I'm building it under a mini-budget... real mini.

-AMD processor: 1600 athlon(i know this one will work )
-Any good Socket A motherboards? I searched the net and no one would say weather their MB was linux compatable or not and redhat.com is a pain.
-maxtor for HD?
-hewletpackard CD?
-soundblaster(any)?
-nvidia(any)?
-lancard...?
-256ram, low clock(any)?

Those are very vauge I know but i'm more worried about the companies over all compatability with Linux than any given product. If there is a company that isn't good is there another you may recommend or a specific product that is cheap that you would recommend? Thank in advance for any tips

-Joe Black

You could get a nforce2 board with onboard graphics if you don't need top notch 3d.Those sell about 60.- US$ and will take care of lan and graphics.

On a budget, don't buy big name brands- they cost more.

Mercury motherboards are cheap & cheerful but work ok - I have one myself, with built-in LAN and sound. Any EIDE hard drive will be ok, equally any ATAPI CD-ROM. Nvidia graphics cards need nvidia's proprietary driver, which is free, pretty good and easy to install (I use it). Sound support is not generally a major problem these days, AC97 clone sound gear works fine unless you want very high quality (but then you wouldn't be restricting your budget so much, would you?).

Don't get too worked up about Linux hardware compatibility - generic PC hardware is almost always OK on Linux these days unless it is "Windows only", which frequently affects modems and printers. Specialist/unusual/very-high-performance kit is more of a problem because fewer folks have it. I bought a low cost machine like this:

Mercury KT400 mobo
AMD Athlon XP 2200
unbranded 512Mb DDR
2 x 40Gb ATA-100 Maxtor hard drives
Lite-On DVD-CDRW combo
onboard Via Rhine LAN
onboard AC97 sound codec (VIA chip)
nVidia GeForce 4 MX440 video with 64Mb (AGP card)

It all works fine under Windows 98SE, RedHat9 and LinuxFromScratch, no problems installing or configuring anything.

Hope that helps you a little.

Euan