All hardware is compatible for Linux if you going with 2.6.x kernel versions and the HCL is always old. I just go to Aberdeen Inc to figure out what components are compatible with each other so there is no conflicts. I do not pick a motherboard that has a bunch of junk on it like SATA, firewire, NIC, sound, and an additional PATA controller.

I like to grade from 1 - 10 what programs I'm using or going to use to figure out the processor speed, memory, video card, and hard drive. If you think you are going to do a lot of video capture and processing the video files to final output, you can get the fastest CPU. If you are not you can save some money buying a slower processor for other components like memory.

If you like upgrading your BIOS, using the BIOS menu to flash itself is a good feature. It can sometimes screw up and then you have to use a boot floppy. Making floppy with dos is easy. Look up freedos. Upgrading the BIOS is dangerous so only do it if it can not work well with top of the line memory.

The motherboard brand that I preferr are ABIT, ASUS, and Gigabyte. Sometimes I look at AOPEN and EPOX. I do not care for MSI, Soyo, and many other brands.

For sound, I would buy Turtle Beach Santa Cruz because I prefer audio quality over features.

I would buy Highpoint SATA controllers because Highpoint is on top of things for Linux. Highpoint has source code for their controllers so you can use the latest kernel version. Though only use Linux software RAID.

I go would for +400 watt models from Zalman, Enermax, or Power and Cooling on power supplies. Do not use power supplies that comes with computer chassis

Preferred AMD Chipsets
VIA K8T800 Pro
nVidia nForce3 250
nVidia nForce3 150

Preferred INTEL chipsets
INTEL 875
INTEL 865

Just about any omputer chassis will do. It depends on your personality and expansion for the future.

I would use PCI NICs instead of onboard NICs. PCI NICs are much easier to setup.

For video, I would go for either ATI or nVidia but depends how good you are in Linux and how well you follow directons.

Basically it is the same rules applies when building a computer for Windows with some exceptions.

Electro

Thanks for your kind thoughts.

I am already swaying to Gigabyte due to the bios issue, and yes I know I should not take risks unless I have to, but I would like the backup plan.

My current hardware is almost 5 yrs old and we know lots with older. As soon as we buy it its out-of-date. So the dilemma is to try and save money and not worry about a minor upgrade or go for a bundle that works ......(mobo with cpu with ram) and hope to get another 5 years out of them OR if we had money, go for the best......heh heh.

There may be some disagreement on ALL hardware being ok with a kernel 2.6. There are some posts like bonecrushers showing the chicken and egg problem that a kernel needed a re-compile to recognise a SATA drive but was not available on the install cds.

Also mandrake's hardware site shows a number of stuff NOT working.link (5) in my first post.

I don't want to start a flame tho, as I have never used real networks (external dial up modem) so I appreciate your all advice and especially on PCI stuff.

I need a windows boot disk to flash my mobo (yes I know the warnings)

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
and choose the non windows image files

thanks to bakery2k for the tip as it saves using wine etc to work exe files

Electro's suggestion of amd chipset led me to MOBO gigabyte k8vt800 Pro with dual bios.
Having already seen that it looked like I could use knoppix wine to unzip and "exe" the gigabyte bios updates and this bios does not need a boot disk

I CAN report that I received a reply from gigabyte , they would not agree to main request to supply the file in unzipped form with no exe format.

forgot to link this thread and will update when I get the mobo to play with
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...highlight=wine
describes how to use wine to unzip gigabyte bios update but not fully tested but looks like does NOT need a boot disk

well my new pc has arrived, too early yet to update HCL but the best surprise is that I am trying out Mdk 10.1 CE and my new wireless kb and mouse work.

Apparently sata drives do not report well with hdparm but with kde running and no disable of my (normal) services
hdparm -Tt /dev/sda gives 1078/294 for hdparm -c3d1u1X70 /dev/sda........-i & -I and some others give errors.
What I do know is that my first partimage of 1.47G had a speed of 454 M/min without tweaking in knoppix 3.6 using 2.4 kernel

My old resccd CD reports my sata as a /dev/hde and did not like any hdparm I tried. This uses an old 2.4 kernel that must have not made the shift to sda.

2) I dont expect pple to get excited on what I buy but I do recommend gigabyte mobos for the DUAL bios range.

I have received an email from Stirz.....hullo

answer I do not use DRI on video card as instructions say not to.....but use GLX instead so my
/etc/X11/XF86Config file has this section

Section "Module"
Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" # 3D layer in lieu of DRI
EndSection

Yep I am using Nvidia's driver from their site.

However my card is the cheapest I could get of the type I wanted. It has been shown to have a low FPS rate so you may prefer a higher number.

here is page one of search results at nvidia site for linux
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/n...ers.search_fnl

and a very important link is here
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/n...i=&p_topview=1