Re: Help Needed!!
Damian Gerow <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.user-groups.linux.ottawa.general |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Thus spake Andy Civil ([email protected]) [26/08/08 12:20]: : Was I wrong? Nope. NVidia did a great job at turning out a binary blob that works flawlessly 80% of the time, mildly flawed another 18% of the time, and horrendously flawed another 2% of the time. : What brands do people prefer for Linux? I tend to stick with AMD/ATI. That covers processor, chipset, and videocard, so there's not much else to worry about. The day someone turns out RAM that isn't FLOSS-friendly is the day I stop using computers. Actually, to be honest, I usually get VIA systems these days. They make fantastic servers, great headless workstations (I use my work-supplied laptop as a remote X terminal), and decent firewalls -- they just need more NICs. To be fair, I don't do much that's graphics-intensive. Beyond that, if I'm looking for other hardware: - 3Ware for RAID cards. This was strict until a couple of years ago, but now the Intel RAID cards -- included in their reference motherboards! -- are pretty decent, and I've heard naught but good about Areca. Avoid Adaptec like the plague these days. - WD and Seagate for HDs. The Caviar series was phenomenal, and the WD Green 1TB HDs make for a great RAID array. Why "Green"? They run at 5400RPM, and at RAID5, that's plenty (for me). And I still have a few of the Seagate 7200.7 40GBs in heavy use, at least four years after date of purchase. - Atheros or Intel for wireless cards. Depending on what I'm looking for, sometimes the former is better, sometimes the latter. - I've given up on finding a good, reliable GBE NIC. I usually use what's on board; it's almost always "good enough". Intel still seems to lead the pack here, but SysKonnect has turned out a few decent products. NB: I'm more of a BSD user than a Linux user, so binary blobs -- or custom Linux drivers -- don't really cut it for me. : I want my next computer to be able to play full-HD movies through an HDMI cable : with mplayer to a widescreen TV :-) Your best bet is to check out the AMD chipset line. Six months ago, I would have recommended the 690G, but that is probably a little dated now. The ATI driver has come a long way; see <http://www.radeonhd.org/> -- OCLUG general discussion list [email protected] http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/oclug