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Longfellow wrote:

>>> ... I know to avoid Invidia graphic stuff, ...
>>
>> Why avoid nvidia? The have supported Linux for a long time and I
>> found the ATI stuff to be more of a pain to setup.
>
> I got that backwards? Thanks for the heads-up!

I'm not sure. Here's another data point, just in case ...

I've had no trouble at all with ATI Radeons (various models) in my own
systems (my home systems of late have been refurbished HP Pavilions
purchased at liquidation time from a local retailer, and I've been
*very* happy with these). My understanding (in the past) was that
Nvidia adapters required that you use the included Windows driver,
loaded via ndiswrapper. I've never needed to examine how difficult
that is to setup, though. The ATI built-in controllers on my systems
(three HP Pavilion desktop systems so far, and a Toshiba laptop, and
card-based Radeons prior to the Pavilions) have worked just fine with
Linux-native drivers (including the one supplied by ATI for X).

Interesting to note that there seem now to be two primary players in
the graphics controllers "game", while not so many years ago there were
significantly more of them.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille syl@alcor.concordia.ca

Network and Systems analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On 2008-04-25, andrew <andrew@ilium.invalid> wrote:
> On 2008-04-25, No_One <no_one@no_where.com> wrote:
>> On 2008-04-24, andrew <andrew@ilium.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> I guess you will get a wide range of opinion here. FWITW I have always
>>> bought second hand machines, usually Dells from their business line.
>>> This gives solid performance but no particular frills in terms of
>>> sound and video. Upgrade the ram (new) and off I go. I am typing this
>>> on a Dell GX270 that I did exactly that to. Cost me a couple of
>>> hundred when I bought it.
>
>> Is there a dell url for these machines...you're talking about buying from
>> dell right.
>
> Not available in Australia from Dell. I actually buy from ebay.
>
> Andrew
>

Never gave ebay a thought....have to give it a look.

thanks

ken

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:43:37 +0000, Sylvain Robitaille wrote:
> My understanding (in the past) was that
> Nvidia adapters required that you use the included Windows driver,
> loaded via ndiswrapper. I've never needed to examine how difficult
> that is to setup, though.

None of that is necessary. Download the driver from nVidia and execute it.

# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run -a

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:08:58 -0500, Longfellow wrote:

> On 2008-04-24, Douglas Mayne <doug@localhost.localnet> wrote:
>> On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:18:50 -0500, Longfellow wrote:
>>
>>> ... or is it a tectonic shift? The wife is now more sensitive to her
>>> computer performance than am I! So now we go hunting for new hardware.
>>>
>>> But all that is negotiable. What is not is that it run Slackware 12.x.
>>> Ergo, that is the benchmark, and why I'm mentioning it here: What are
>>> you guys using for hardware? What is the most rock solid reasonably
>>> performing system (actually, components, I suppose) that Slackers have
>>> found?
>>>
>>> Understand that the wife is running my old Tomcat 3 w/ 133MHz Pentium,
>>
>> Do you mean an original, P5 pentium at 133 MHz? If so, you may be
>> interested in the upgrades listed below.
>
> Yep. Now to be retired to duty as a mail server or the like under
> FreeBSD (or the like). It's now a teen-ager and behaves itself
> remarkably well for its age... quality does show, dontchaknow... );
>
Tyan boards, at least the subset I've handled, seemed to have
somehow avoided the capacitor failure problem which plagued other
manufacturers: Abit, DFI, etc.

I have some Tyan 230T's in use for various purposes. The dual processors
keep the system responsive while under load. They were the best "bang for
the buck," until recently. Now that title goes to Intel's Core 2
architecture, IMO. One of the biggest changes is the much faster memory
pipeline to the CPUs. The new architecture's uses multi-pumped DDR2 SDRAM
and is dramatically faster than the simple SDRAM typically used by
the Pentium III generation. Also, Core 2, as its name suggests, contains
multiple cores which gives the advantages that I previously mentioned. The
45nm process further reduces heat, and offers more options down the road.
For example, the atom processor line appears poised to get the most
out of a "few million" transitors.

Your timing is actually quite good for upgrading. Prices have dropped
again, and the Linux kernel supports SATA and the new chipsets- at least
for the motherboards that I have tested (which use Intel chipsets.) Last
year, there was a bit of a rough patch with the kernel supporting the
hardware. AFAIK, JMicron chipsets are supported now, and also the Marvell
ethernet controllers, which are commonly integrated into many
motherboards, work fine. It appears to be true that the newest hardware
will be supported best by the most recent Linux kernel. This is somewhat
counter to Slackware's philosophy of selecting first the "tried and true"
for stability over the "latest and greatest" for gizmos. However,
sometimes the "bleeding edge" is the only option that will work at all.
I am looking forward to Slackware 12.1, and it looks like it will be the
best Slack yet!

[ Even more OT ]

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would be asking Intel to give a
deposition if there was any tit-for-tat in the Vista capable lawsuit.
Specifically, did Intel have to give anything to Microsoft in exchange
for them being allowed to display "Vista Capable" stickers on boxes
using i915 and similar chipsets. Could it be that Intel promised not
to develop AHCI mode SATA drivers for W2k and XP? This mode is
_reserved_ for Vista only. Was there a quid-pro-quo? Luckily, this BS is
avoided when drivers are developed in the open. AHCI mode works fine on
the recent Linux kernel.

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:43:37 +0000, Sylvain Robitaille wrote:

> Interesting to note that there seem now to be two primary players in the
> graphics controllers "game", while not so many years ago there were
> significantly more of them.

Nvidia, AMD/ATI, Intel. Which two were you thinking of? :-)

marksouth wrote:

> Nvidia, AMD/ATI, Intel. Which two were you thinking of? :-)

The two that ever seem to get talked about. I mean I still see Matrox
and Hercules products on store shelves, but nobody ever seems to talk
about them either. In fact, I'd actually _forgotten_ that Intel decided
to broaden their product line after they started losing ground on the
CPU front ... :-/

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille syl@alcor.concordia.ca

Network and Systems analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Longfellow wrote:

> virtually anything would be a marked improvement, specifically my
> currant Asus CBUX, sporting a faster (1GHz) processor, of course. So

just a remark on the CUBX: kernel versions 2.6.22 and 2.6.23 introduced a
bug in the CMD-648 driver that shows up when you use both channels. It got
fixed in 2.6.24 (so both Slack 12.0 and Slack 12.1 should be fine).

Other than that a CUBX with a 1 GHz cpu is still a powerful machine for
everyday use.

Martin

Longfellow wrote:
> ... or is it a tectonic shift? The wife is now more sensitive to her
> computer performance than am I! So now we go hunting for new hardware.
>
> But all that is negotiable. What is not is that it run Slackware 12.x.
> Ergo, that is the benchmark, and why I'm mentioning it here: What are
> you guys using for hardware? What is the most rock solid reasonably
> performing system (actually, components, I suppose) that Slackers have
> found?
>

Here's a list of the machines I currently own running Slack in some format:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ in an Abit board. (socket 754/Via Chipset/GeForce 4
Ti4200)
AMD Sempron 64 3000+ in an Asus board. (socket 754/Via Chipset/it's my
file server using onboard video.)
Dual PIII/600 on an Asus board. (Intel BX Chipset IIRC)
A couple old Pentium 200's.
AMD K6/2-450 as well.

The only machine I have that's not yet dual boot or exclusively slack is
my laptop and that's because I'm too busy/lazy to get around to doing
it. I'm currently building a PC for my daughter - it's going to be dual
boot too. sesamestreet.org works fine under slack.

The only place where I've really seen support issues with Slack and
Linux in general is scanners.

I avoid ATI. Binary driver or not, Nvidia drivers work good under
windows and Linux. Maybe I'm just bitter because when I used to do
desktop support back when, ATI released drivers for some of their cards
daily... and they were all crap.

If it's rock solid under Windows, it should be the same under Linux. If
it's a POS machine that hard hangs and it's not software related, don't
expect it to be any better under Linux.

Frankly, if you're running a Pentium 133... any Walmart $299 special
will blow your socks off.

On 2008-04-27, ray <rollingviolation@domain.invalid.com> wrote:
>
> Frankly, if you're running a Pentium 133... any Walmart $299 special
> will blow your socks off.

But, for how long? I've heard they're junk and prone to failure.

nb

notbob wrote:
> On 2008-04-27, ray <rollingviolation@domain.invalid.com> wrote:
>> Frankly, if you're running a Pentium 133... any Walmart $299 special
>> will blow your socks off.
>
> But, for how long? I've heard they're junk and prone to failure.
>
> nb

True.
I still build my own machines from carefully selected parts.
For other people, if they're not gamers, I've started telling them to
buy the cheapest system they think will meet their needs and consider it
disposable.

When you consider how much you'd have to pay to have someone fix your
PC, it's almost not worth fixing them. I know two people who have
actually tossed machines instead of paying to have the malware removed.
Of course, I find this out AFTER they've done this... I'll take free
two year old computers that just need windows blown away and Slack
installed...

Ray