building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

[JAFN]

I have been playing around with linux for years, but my desktop is about to die and I dont want to give M$ any more of my money. So its time to make the switch to Kubunutu.

I will be making a run to Directron in the next week to pick up some parts. here are the specs so far:

Motherboard ASUS M2N-E SLI Socket AM2 ATX Motherboard, nForce 500 SLI MCP
CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5000+
Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB (4 x 1GB) Quad Kit Desktop Memory, DDR2 800
eVGA GeForce 8500GT PCI-E Video Card 512
(2)WD Caviar SE16 250GB SATA Hard Drive WD2500KS, 300 MB/s, 7200RPM, 16MB Cache
and I will be pulling the dvd drives and a month old 500 gig Pata HDD from the existing box.

I have been doing some reading and have found that there are a few issues with Nforce motherboards in the past(sound and getting the nic to work) , but what about Kubunutu supporting the onboard raid?

What about getting a brother n2070 printer and a Cannon cannoscan 650u scanner to play nice?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[dibl]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

Looks like that Brother printer could be a little dodgy:

http://openprinting.org/show_printer...other-HL-2070N

I don't think the onboard hardware RAID is usable in Linux -- there are no Linux drivers for it, AFAIK. But you can probably use dmraid if that is your wish.

I have also seen problems in the past with the nForce chipset, but not lately.

If the scanner is USB, there should be no issues with it.

If you are going to dual boot, install Windows first and Linux second, so Grub can set up the boot menu for you. Probably life will be simpler if you install them to the IDE drive, but it's possible to install to the SATA drive and then fiddle with Grub to point it to the kernel.

[JAFN]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

Nope no dual dual booting. Somethings that have to be done in windows with have to be done with VMware. Even that is just for syncing my phone. Everything else will be done in a windows free environment.

I am wanting to go cold turkey

[dibl]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

Nope no dual dual booting. Somethings that have to be done in windows with have to be done with VMware. Even that is just for syncing my phone. Everything else will be done in a windows free environment.

I am wanting to go cold turkey

Good for you! VMWare Player 2.0 works perfectly on my Gutsy system -- I only have 2 things that I need my old Win XP for, but when you need it .....

[marshallbanana]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

I have been doing some reading and have found that there are a few issues with Nforce motherboards in the past(sound and getting the nic to work)

Your best bet is probably just to use the livecd to test whether you get sound.

[brasslover]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

I'm sitting in front of a similar system. My motherboard is the following:

ASUS M2N-MX AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

The onboard sound, NIC, and video are all working just fine. I think I may have had to google a bit to find out how to get the sound working, but in my past experience that is not anything new.

I agree with marshallbanana, try the Live CD and see if it sings.

[marshallbanana]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

try the Live CD and see if it sings.

If only I had your way with language.

[JAFN]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

Thanks to everyone for the input and help. It looks like it should work with a little bit of work.

Now its time to wait and see. I'll post back later with the results, and probably more questions.

[JAFN]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

One more silly quest for ya. Should i use the I386 version or the amd64bit version of kubuntu?

Which one will be the most compatable?

Which one will be faster?

Which one will be the most stable?

[dibl]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

On Ubuntu Forums there's a 64-bit forum that you might want to lurk around and review. My personal experience, of late, is that there are only a couple of items that you can't have (conveniently) with the 64-bit OS:

- Java and Java Run-Time Environment (JRE) in your browser*
- Some proprietary media players, for example the one on Rhapsody.com


That's it -- everything else including Flash and the common media players (mplayer, VLC, Amarok, etc.) all work just fine on Gutsy 64-bit. 8)


* "iced-tea" and "blackdown" are ostensible work-arounds, but I don't think they're prime-time ready

[JAFN]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

Well I am up and running. All I have to say is "JUST SAY NO TO USB SOUND CARDS!!!!!!" i finally said Scrog it and went and bought a Soundblaster. The network card worked right out of the box.

Thanks for the help and advice. Now I am off to build some VMware machines and to try and get wine to work.

[Ichido]

Re: building a new pc to make the switch and have some hardware questions

The Brother HL-2070N works fine, just use the driver for the HL-2060!
Check
http://www.tonerrefillkits.com/refil...ther_HL_2070_N
for a great way to Re-Fill your Cartridges!