Is there any one good hardware setup?
 

Being a real newbie and never have used linux yet, i have just these simply questions.....

is there a better hardware setup?, cpu?, usb no usb? vid card (if any)?

is there really a max cpu? ie 2ghz to much, 486 to little? RAM?


the comp will be for home desktop use, with future home network server in mind.

TIA

you can run almost anything yet for some versions a certain cpu speed and amount of ram are required for graphical mode. I have linux on things such as a 200mhz pentium to a Athlon 3200 or my dell notebook. linux supports just about everything. you shouldn't run into many problems depending on hardware, and if it is just a home network server your hardware shouldn't be too stressed.

Well .300WSM,

What a good question to answer. I suppose it's really a question of "how big is your budget".

The following suggestions are extracts from a "n00b" tutorial in Linuxformat issue 43 (don't know if they've got it on their archives yet).

Processor

"and anything above 500 mhz will be perfectly adequate"

Hard disk

"You can run a PC on a tiny amount of hard disk space, but if you want it install KDE, GNOME and a decent selection of ap0lications you really need something in excess of 3GB of free space. The latest Redhat, SuSE and Mandrake distro's claim a minimum of 2GB for a full graphical install, but if you scrimp here, you may spend a lot of time looking at worring messages saying you're about to run out of disk space. If you have a faily large disk and you are dual-booting with windows, 3-5GB lor a linux partitions will usually be enough for the system and basic applcations"

Don't forget, that if you are buying new, then you won't see hard disc's much under 40 gig's in size - small ones tend to be rare and expensive. I would probably go for maybe 2 80gig drives if I was starting from scratch, and they would be SCSI disc's as opposed to IDE type disc's - but SCSI is more expensive.

RAM

"As with hard disk space, you can run a Linux PC on a tiny amount of memory - but why would you want to when RAM is so ludicrously cheap"

So in other words, go for as much and as fast as you can afford - if you're buying a new PC it's worth remembering that it's often even cheaper to buy it at the point of manufacture/build, than it is to just buy extra later on (and that isn't too much either).

REMOVEABLE STORAGE

"A bootable CDROM is almost essential" and "DVD drives and CDRW (Rewritable) drives are always handy to have, and accessing them shouldn't pose a problem for most Linux distro's"

MODEMS

It depends on kind of net access/connection you have or can have either way from my point of view, I would go for an NIC ethernet card, and external modem (though you should look
here for a run down of compatibility)

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

"Whether your PC is equipped with an integrated graphics and sound system, such as intel's ubiquitious i810 chipset, or a high-end AGP graphics card and pro-quality sound card, you should not encounter any problems during installation"

It's just worth bearing in mind, that with very mega new graphics and sound card's, you may experience driver problems, though these are usually sorted out relatively quickly.

PERIPHERALS

"Keyboards, mice, monitors and printers are all well supported. In fact when it comes to printers, many older models have better drivers for Linux than for Windows, thanks to the efforts of Open source developers trying to get the most of their existing hardware"




Well, that's it for extracts from the mag (with my comments - mine are the bits without quotation marks).

As I said, it's really about how much you've got too spend. I tend to favour the as much,and as fast as possible approach.

If the budget is good, then have a look here at the "workstation's" they're expensive, but look like a serious piece's of kit - and it gives you an idea of what "high-end" really means, but don't forget, the extract's that I've included indicate that a couple of hundred A$ worth from a computer fair should also suffice.

regards

John

thx bigjohn

i just recently bought the 2.6c 1gdrr so the wife wont let me spend to much. But from what u have just told me i can keep the price down on the linux machine ( will need the other one and XP so i can come back here for help :) )

If that's the case, then you should just go for dual-booting.

When I was "greener" than I am now, I was given a set of SuSE 8.0 disc's and in total ignorance, I just booted into it, the only prep's that I had made was to make sure that the extra partition that came already set up when I bought my current pc was empty and formatted FAT32.

Then the only real problem I experienced was getting it to connect to the net using my adsl connection (I didn't even think about trying to see if the dial up modem would have worked - it probably wouldn't as it's a "winmodem").

Anyway, I managed to screw up the install without much difficulty (a bit of "trying to build a new house, instead of just painting the windows). But that's how I got into mandrake.

If you try that as a first distro, it should be able to repartition the hard drive (say 5 or 10 gig's) for you, set it's self up including the bootloader (which is "lilo" by default with mandrake - all you have to do is either teach "er indoors" to be able to close down/log out of linux or always remember to boot the machine back into windows before you leave it (I never switch mine off)).

Then off you go - you might have to check out the modem to make sure it's compatible or you can get drivers for it as it is probably a winmodem.

Or if you're still not too sure, then download "knoppix" and burn the disc. Then you can have a look at the app's "in anger", it is a "live cd" distribution and doesn't put anything on the hard drive at all (unless you decide to do a hard drive install, which you can't do by accident). I've tried it, and got it installed on my hard drive as a second distro - if you did do the hd install of knoppix, then it is basically just a debian install. But again, you would have to check the modem.

I suppose I am lucky, as I have got the adsl connection through a modem/router so it's a breeze to set up the network card with just about any distro.

regards

John

p.s. Personally, I'd just download (or buy) a copy of mandrake and go for it, if you need any help with anything then if you can't get the modem to work, you can always boot back into windows and post here for help (and yes the first mandrake distro I had -8.2- was downloaded and burned to disc under windows:D)