[GRLUG] shopping for linux-compatible hardware

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:04 PM, John J. Foerch<jjfoerch at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>  Can anyone offer advice on how to effectively shop for linux-compatible
> hardware?  I am looking into upgrading my aging Pentium 3 system, and
> what I basically want is hassle-free hardware support.  I am very much
> partisan to Asus mainboards, and I want onboard video that "just works",
> including 3D support which, as I understand, means I should be looking
> for an Intel chipset.  Thoughts?

Near as I can figure, we're not to the "it just works" stage for 3D
acceleration with recent hardware.  With Intel, if the chipset is a
year or two old, it'll likely work well with Today's kernel.
Depending on how old your distro's current kernel is, you may have to
look farther back.

Additionally, I've had experiences where my Intel chipset hardware was
too *old* for the current batch of X11 drivers; With my old system, I
had to use an X server targeted at i810, rather than Intel.  And the
i810-targeted-server was deprecated, IIRC.

If you *can* live without the onboard video, you have the option of
getting a recent motherboard and an older video chipset on an
expansion card.  The Radeon 9000 series, for example, is very well
supported by the open-source drivers, which means less hassle setting
up.


-- 
:wq