Re: [SLUG] main board recommendations

From: Steve (steve@szmidt.org)
Date: Wed Dec 03 2003 - 20:46:49 EST


On Wednesday 03 December 2003 07:33 am, you wrote:
> It would be nice to be able to replace the board without having to
> reinstall the OS. The mainboard (Tyan) was purposely chosen to not having
> any onboard components. The previous install has video and sound and nic.
> Time is a hot commodity right now (fixing and working on others
> workstations.) Do you recommendations still apply with this in mind?

As Paul pointed out there can be trouble.
Linux does not seem to care once you arrive at Athlon class if you have a XP
version or whatever. The chipset is a different situation.

But it does not really have to be too bad. Simply running a basic install with
minimum can handle a lot of h/w changes without loosing your personal
configurations. Just make note of which partition is mounted where. Network
settings will be redone on install, and so will X, so backup you XF86Config
first.

Otherwise you should be fine. Autodetection for one is working pretty well.
Video card, monitor, NIC, sound, printer, all have pretty good detection.

You could have created some interesting problems for yourself by installing
tools that break the distro's way of managing s/w. SuSA is easy to break that
way due to their (at least former) way of configuring things.

A Gnome install tool which name escapes me, breaks a few things and you're
stuck with it once you install. (The way I usually try new things is by
having multiple installs of Linux. Let's me try distros and stuff without
breaking my day to day environment.)

In the end it all depends on what you have, s/w and h/w wise, to answer your
question. It of course depends on where you are going too. You really ought
to learn by trial and error by messing up a few installs...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: slug@nks.net [mailto:slug@nks.net]On Behalf Of Steve
> Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 12:27 AM
> To: slug@nks.net
> Subject: Re: [SLUG] mainbaord recommendations
>
> On Tuesday 02 December 2003 10:46 pm, you wrote:
> > The motherboard on a Suse box is toast. Recommendations on a
> > replacement?
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
> > Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted
> > are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official
> > policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
>
> I'm running MSI with Athlon for a few generations and am very happy.
>
> On this one box I upgraded from a m/b with 1.3G CPU and 266 bus and VIA
> chipset to another MSI with the VIA chipset KT600. What's good about it is
> that it will run the old CPU and RAM until I spend more money on it and go
> with 3+G and 400 MHz bus. It's not the top of line but quite nice for the
> few
> $$ it costs.
>
> The choices seem to be with either VIA or nVidia chipset. The latter seems
> very popular these days.
>
> A point with the 8237 chipset is that it's only supported from someplace
> like
> 2.4.22. This means no DMA for your harddrive on lower version kernel. I run
> a
> 2.4.23 kernel and it works fine supporting UDMA 133/100/66/33 drives. It
> also
> has both RAID and SATA support. 8 port USB 2.0.
>
> The onboard NIC (Broadcom) supports 10/100/1000 but I don't know if there's
> Linux support as I prefer 3Com.
>
> As usual I also use my own soundcard and not the onboard. But it does do 6
> channel audio.
>
> It also does overclocking nicely with 1MHz steps from 100 to 280 MHz. I got
> an
> 1800 running as a 2000 right now. It's running nice and cool.
>
> --
> Steve
>
> __________________________________________________
> You actually need to constantly be alert
> and willing to handle things, or life
> will find a way to get you good!
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
> Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages
> posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
> official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
> Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages
> posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
> official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.

-- 
Steve

__________________________________________________ You actually need to constantly be alert and willing to handle things, or life will find a way to get you good! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.



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