Re: Hardware advice needed
On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 08:53:02AM +1000, Penguin wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I would like to buy some new hardware so I can get rid of my stupid RedHat
> bloatware with its buggy latest betas and alphas and get Potato 2.2r4 on my
> box here.
If your hardware works with RH then it should work with Debian.
> The problems I have so far is: video card (I have an NVIDIA GeForce II MX400
> AGP card 64MB), modem (I have an external NetComm Roadster II 56K) and sound
> card (Ess Solo 1).
Sounds good.
>
> Potato fails to recognise my video card and I am lost and confused about my
> modem, since I can't get the packages with my Internet connection (not one of
> them) because when I specify HTTP or FTP as a source for packages, it fails
> to dial my ISP.
If your only internet connection is through a modem then get a set of CDs.
You really don't want to download Debian at 56k.
> Also, once I had setup wvdial, and typed wvdial at the
> command line, it would dial fine, and it would get all the way to "starting
> PPP ..." or whatever, then just stop there. It would never acknowledge I was
> connected. Lynx and so on would say they could not find the host and that I
> wasn't connected, and yet when I went `echo "Hello World blah blah" >
> /dev/ttyS0 this would clearly be sent through my modem. (Where to I don't
> know, maybe the ISP server!)
FWIW I've been pretty happy using pppconfig to set up internet connections
and pon/poff to dial/hangup.
> So what I want to do is:
> - get a video card Potato will recognise or autodetect at install time, pref
> a PCI card, not AGP (will I get good quality graphics on my desktop with a
> PCI card, as I do with my AGP card? Apparently AGP cards are always faster.
> True??)
For 2D stuff the speed difference would be pretty minimal but really, Debian
doesn't do much in the way of "detecting", you pretty much have to tell it
what you have. When I set up a Debian box I start with a very minimal
install and NO X. Once the base system is in then I go back and install X
and whatever packages I want.
> - get a sound card that Potato has a driver for
I think your card is supported by Alsa if nothing else. Probably a trip to
google will tell you for sure.
> - get a 56K modem (PCI card pref) that Potato can work with
Your external is a far better choice.
> Also, can I use a 15inch screen with Debian? It won't stupidly assume I have
> a 17inch screen like some RedHat programmes??
Huh? You certainly can use pretty much any size screen you want with Debian
but really I'd expect that to be true of RH as well....
--
Ray
Reply to: