On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 20:17:35 +1300 Peter Elliott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Chris > > i've been considering doing something like this myself but was stalled > wondering about the GeForce card(s) - as in don't they use an nvidia > chipset& doesn't this present problems/hassles for linux users who > want to get full use of the card(3D acceleration wise)? I say what???? nvidia drivers may be closed source, but they have excellent linux suport. I have a lot of time for linux journal, its latest edition has the semi regular "ultimate linux box" article. some extracts (remember this is trying to get a very recent nvidia board going on a dual 64 bit opteron - hardly yet a standard setup) "Since the absorption of 3dfx, all three major graphics companies, ATI, NVIDIA and Matrox, have gone closed-source with their 3-D accelerated drivers. This development is distressing for several reasons." fair enough, but the article also states: "While putting the finishing touches on this article, I received a call from Jeff Brown, of NVIDIA, following up on getting their driver to behave with the Ultimate Linux Box. I asked him to comment on why NVIDIA had not open-sourced their driver, which might have enabled a faster resolution of my issues. His response was the driver, the core of which is a single code base that works on everything from Windows to Linux to FreeBSD to OS X, was about 50% of NVIDIA's "intellectual property" content, the rest of the IP being the GPU itself. By comparison, on network cards, Intel appears to have most of the smarts on the card itself and subsequently has GPLed the driver. In compromise to the Open Source community, NVIDIA has committed itself to keeping support and feedback channels open. Brown said that Andy Mecham, one of NVIDIA's engineers, devotes half his workday to providing help to folks on the Linux forum, nvnews.com. I saw evidence of this myself in my search for answers; Andy's name seemed to be fairly common on the boards. Brown also said the folks that really pay the freight on the Linux side, members of the Visual Effects Society (of the members he mentioned, the name Disney stuck in my head) are satisfied with NVIDIA's support. These are the people that would use a commercially supported system similar to the Ultimate Linux Box 2003 as a multimedia workstation to do bleeding-edge stuff. The fact that Monarch [the system supplier] was able to get me, a solo end user, direct access to an engineer who did pin down the problem correctly, without having access to my machine, speaks well of NVIDIA's commitment to support. Although I don't think we're going to see a GPL driver for any NVIDIA card anytime soon, I think perhaps we're getting the next best thing, a company that knows where the future is and is committed to helping us get there without giving away its secret recipe." sounds pretty positive to me. anyone got anything better in the 3d graphics line? > > i checked out what i could find at places like xfree86, nvidia, and > all the google rest but am just as uncertain as when i began. > have you heard much of anything about using these cards on a linux > system? > > also i was a bit worried about the KT400 as some earlier mobo's with > via chipsets proved to be problematic(kernel/memory problems) but from > what i've managed to find out this board runs linux ok. meaning i > haven't found any complaints out there. > > and, yes there is more, another thing that i really would like cleared > up is just what do i gain process wise by going the athlonxp way as > opposed to say getting one of the new celerons, given that the prices > are roughly equal? > anyone? > > re your question: > i've done that before with newly put together boxes, twice it went ok > - kudzu just twigged to all the "new" stuff and walked thru the > changes - once it craped out completely and i had to use a rescue disk > and change all the relevant config files by hand. > given the robustness of the mandrake boot-time hardware checker i'd > say you shouldn't have any problems given that it's all standard off > the shelf stuff we're talking about. > > cheers > peter > ================================== > On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 17:19:46 +1300 > Chris Wilkinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hi there, > > > > I hope to buy an upgrade package from somewhere like Computer > > Broker. It will consist of an ATX mobo (KT400 chipset), AthlonXP > > 2000+/2400+(haven't decided which yet), 300W ATX case, and 256MB > > DDR333 RAM... Oh, and a GeForceFX 5600 (maybe an Ultra if price is > > right). > > > > I will use the CD-ROM and 20GB hard disk from my current box. The > > disk is loaded with Mandrake 9.1. My question is can I just > > transplant the disks over to the new PC, start it and let the new > > hardware daemon take care of any "oh crikey, this wasn't the > > hardware I booted on last time!" issues with Mandrake? > > > > Any advice is welcome... > > > > -- > > Kind regards, > > > > Chris Wilkinson, Christchurch, New Zealand. > > Remove spamblocker to send replies direct to my email... > > > > > > > >
