I have started using Mandrake Linux on a dual partition with Win98 but I would like to build my own PC and install Mandrake on it. My question is: are there any specific choices of hardware I should use because I will be installing Linux rather than Windows? i.e. are there any types of processor, hard disk, memory, video card etc that are better suited for use with Linux?

I would probably start with a 2.8GHz Pentium, 512 MB RAM and 80GB hard disk. My main applications would be office use: word processing, speadsheets, database, DTP, browsing and the like. Probably the most demanding aspect would be running multiple applications. It would not be used for games, video or heavy graphic applications.

Any suggestions of preferred hardware or types to avoid would be welcome!

Thanks

Those specs look alright. Wait around for some guru advice, though.
As for the video card, if you don't intend for some extreme games or anything,
and you'd like something cheap, try going on pricewatch and looking for a GeForce 2 GTS.
Nice, cheap, get's the job done, and it isn't too much overkill.

Prefer off board hardware than onboard.
Prefer nvidia than ati.
Prefer real modems than software/win modems.

Via chipsets are linux-friendly, and the motherboards built with them (Abit, for example). Avoid very very new stuff, bleeding edge. Prefer, say, 1 year old hardware. If you get in trouble setting a piece of hardware, someone over the internet will, likely, be able to help you (the nice thing of being in a community...).

For a non-specific pc this is ok. Get the newest mdk release, all should be fine.

If you are planning on using KDE/GNOME, nothing less than 256 RAM, preferably 512MB.

Also nVidia Graphics Cards since the drivers are more compatible(ATI Cards got some issues specially with XOrg)

As for CPU, anything higher than 2Ghz is great.

Dont forget to take a look at the Linux HCL here on Linuxquestions.

If you haven't yet, you might be interested in
looking at

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

Sheng-chieh

I wouldn't say that - my computer is running KDE2.3 with 128mb RAM without a problem - stock video (32mb) onboard, runs like a champ.
http://www.geocities.com/j_dorn3/screenshot.jpg

Thanks everyone for all the help with my first post to Linux Questions. As the man said, "I''ll be back!

that's OVERKILL if you're only running linux especially with no games!
my laptop is a 1.8ghz P4-m, 256mb ram and a 30gb hdd(300mb swap partition). So far I've had 4 firefox browser windows open, openoffice, kdevelop and a terminal recompiling my kernel running at the same time and i could *hardly* notice a difference in speed.
as for the 80gb hdd, unless ur planning on copying dvds, have a rather large mp3 collection or d/l movies or something similar there's no point. I've spent weeks trying to fill some space on mine(keep in mind i still use dialup) installing everything i can think of including a whole bunch of emulators from mame to snes and the roms for each and i've still got 20gb left.