I'm about to buy a new computer and I want to use Linux as
an operating system. The problem is that I don't know if all
hardware is suported by Linux. I have already tried homepages
of several Linux distributions (Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake) and hardware manufacturers. There hasn't been information about all
the hardware. How can I get information about that hardware compatibility? And the hardware I'm planning to buy:

Octek AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1,800GHz
MSI KT333 SOCKET A ATX USB2.0 ATA-133
512MB DDR DIMM
DIAMONDMAX+9 80GB DMA133 7200RPM FDB
SAPPHIRE Radeon 9100 64MB VGA+DVI-D+TV
Logitech B69 Wheel Mouse Optical
LG CD-RW/DVD Combo 48/24/48+16X
3COM Fast Etherlink XL PCI 10/100 (3C905C-TX)


Thanks,

Most of the stuff will probably work. The thing that might give you the most trouble is the Etherlink. To be sure, go to the devices' manufacturers' websites and check if they have Linux drivers available.

There's also the Hardware-HOWTO:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...are-HOWTO.html

While that's an extensive howto, that aaa has posted for you, just use it as a guide. One good for instance is the mainboard section. That's quite limited. My mobo is by MSI (Taiwanese), and I have no problems with it.

But it's also not mentioned on mandrakes site either!

As far as I have seen, it's net connections and scanners that have "historically" had considerable snags.

The modem for dial up. It seems best to use an external one, judging from the number of posts that I've seen moaning about internal's (mainly discovering that the machines modem is a winmodem - but some of them CAN be made to work).

If you have broadband, then opt for an ethernet type - I've only seen a few problems with them, whereas you search for usb broadband modem problems and you will get screen after screen of posting.

And scanners can be a considerable nuisance whichever way you look at them.

I had lots of probs getting mine working (but managed eventually), then "out of the blue" mandrake release 9.1, and it's all precompiled, detected, etc etc No problems at all.

It also depends on the distro. If you are using one of the "biggies" then as they are updated relatively frequently, hence you get problems solved like my one above.

There is also the option of buying the pc with linux of some kind pre-installed.

Dell (apparently) do one, it can be hassle getting them to supply it, but apparently it's possible. You haven't given a location, but here in the UK, it's either evesham or Mesh that can supply one with mandrake pre-installed - in the US, I'm given to understand that you should even be able to get a linux based PC from Walmart (with lindows, I think).

Hope this gives you some ideas.

regards

John

you could also pick out the hardware you like and come home and search the net to see how compatable with linux they are before you buy them