Re: Video card and CD-rom or CD_RW recommendations
* Rog?rio Brito (rbrito@ime.usp.br) wrote:
> On Aug 19 2001, Abner Gershon wrote:
> > I am building a new computer (a first for me) and will be using an
> > Abit KT7A motherboard with Athlon 1.3 Ghz cpu.
>
> Perhaps you'd like to see http://cr.yp.to/hardware/abit.html
> before purchasing your new motherboard.
>
> Be careful that VIA chipsets are an almost necessary evil if
> you go the AMD route: there are a lot of complaints of them in
> the Linux Kernel Mailing list these past months. Now, Alan Cox
> says that he discovered some "contacts" in VIA and that
> they're willing to help support VIA products with Linux in.
>
> Of course, you could buy a motherboard with an AMD chipset
> (like the 760 or the 760MP if you're into dual-processing),
> but you'll have a bit more of problems getting them from your
> local dealear than with a VIA board, since the AMD ones are
> more expensive and produced in lesser quantities.
>
> Personally, I'm using an Asus A7V purchased in December of
> 2000 with no problems.
>
> BTW, an advice: I have the impression (note that this is just
> my *impression* and not a fact) that the Promise controller
> embedded in my board is slighly better (and produces less
> load) than the VIA IDE controller controlling the same hard
> drive.
>
> To use the Promise controller (which supports UDMA 100),
> you'll either have to use a patch from Andr? Hedrick
> <www.linux-ide.org> or use a recent (2.4) kernel.
>
> > I would appreciate recommendations for a video card which could be
> > auto detected or at least very easy to install for X window system.
>
> I must say that I think that this is one of the hardest parts
> in understanding and purchasing for anybody that is outside
> the "scene".
>
> It took me months to understand only the minimum of
> specifications on sites like Tomshardware and Anandtech to
> decide where to spend my hard earned bucks with something that
> would work well with Linux (since that's the only operating
> system that I use).
>
> I think that you should get either a Matrox G400 (or G450) or,
> if you want better 3D performance and a bunch of other
> high-end features, an ATI Radeon (there are some value models
> of the ATI Radeon, but I don't know very much of their product
> lines).
>
> Both Matrox and ATI are reasonably open source-friendly (with
> some slight exceptions, mainly regarding TV Out) and these are
> the manufacturers with which you should make business. ATI,
> BTW, seems to be supporting many open source projects.
>
> Personally, I have a Matrox G400 and I'm satisfied with it,
> but I don't play games and don't know if they are good for
> those things. What I do care about is some good performance in
> 2D and playing videos (DIVX, DVDs).
Hi,
Did you by any chance get your G400 to play DVD or DIVX out of the
secondary head to a TV? If you did I would be very much interested in
hearing how you did that.
Cheers,
Alex.
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