[vox-tech] Newbie: On building a Linux box

[Rick Moen]

Quoting B Raiford (raiford@cwnet.com):

> I like building my own computers, so I built one for Linux. Now I find
> out almost none of the components are compatible with Red Hat (the
> distribution I've got); some are compatible with SuSE (available and
> recommended by a friend).

The Red Hat "Hardware Compatibility List" used to be a great deal more
useful.  Unfortunately, the old pages have been scrapped and replaced
with a crappy database.

To echo comments from Karsten and others, though, you'll get a lot more
useful responses if you were more specific.  What components?  What
problem symptoms?

> Red Hat didn't list any motherboards, so I figured they would all
> work; there were also no hard disks listed. I try to install Red Hat
> and find that the chip set and the hard disk will not work. As far as
> I can tell I will have to build another box, so here is the question:

Again, this is not useful description.  You should describe the problem
symptoms, so we have some idea what the problem was.  It might have an
easy solution, but we'd never be able to find it from your description.

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

> Is there an easy (minimum headaches) way of selecting components for
> this new box. 

In general terms:

1.  The best choices are those that have been out for a while
(preferably 1 year plus) and are not the cruddy MS-Windows-dependent
low-end junk Karsten alludes to (crippled modems, crippled printers,
crippled ADSL adapter cards, crippled cheap IDE RAID cards,
motherboard-integrated sound/ethernet circuitry and video).  Well-built,
standard hardware is always safe.  (Moen's Law of Hardware:  Buy what
the programmers buy.)

2.  Firewire, DVD, and to a lesser extent USB might be problematic.

3.  Anything really new, very expensive, or very exotic may be
problematic.

4.  Restrain the urge to lavish money on high-end CPUs, since Linux
boxen are almost never CPU-bound.  Most are I/O-bound; some, RAM-bound.

> When I bought the boards for the box I've been trying to use, I asked
> if it was Linux compatible, and was told "yes." I had forgotten that
> computer component sales people fall into the same category as used
> car salesmen (ie, "yes"=commission).

Old joke from Steve Wozniak:  "Q:  What's the difference between a
computer saleman and a used-car salesman?  A:  The used-car salesman
_knows_ when he's lying."

-- 
Cheers,             Paranoia is the delusion that your enemies are organised.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com