[NCLUG] suggestions on building a box

Michael Dwyer mdwyer at sixthdimension.com
Thu Jan 11 09:33:57 MST 2001


At 09:14 AM 1/11/01 -0700, you wrote:
>I'm thinking about replacing my linux box with one built from
>components and was wondering if I'm getting myself into trouble or
>not. Anyone have good or bad experience, or recommendations?

The general rule is that if you use good components, you can't go 
wrong.  In fact, I believe that building Linux boxes from parts is better 
than trying to change someone else's box into a Linux box -- less strange 
hardware on board.

>I'm looking at an Abit kt7 motherboard (athlon chip). From what I can
>find, Abit used to make mediocre boards but now the quality is much
>better. They also have a kt7-raid board that has a built in raid
>controller. Is this worth it?

It is a VIA chipset board (abit-usa.com).  I'm not fond of VIA's, personally.

The raid controller is IDE raid and is only Level 0, 1, and 0+1 (Mirroring 
and Stripe-ing).  Check the linux docs to make sure it is supported 
well.  As of Nov 2000, the Linux hardware database reports very little 
Linux support for it.  You will probably need a specialized boot kernel. 
They report no problems with the non-raid version.

>I found someone (jcns.com) that will burn in a bare bones system that
>I configure. That would alleviate a lot of my concerns with buying a
>system piece by piece.

I do my own burn-in, using a specialized software package called 
"setiathome".  It seems to work pretty well.

Final words, I again think this is the best way to go.  But step 
carefully.  There are a lot more on-motherboard features than there 
were.  For example, many motherboards are coming with Intel video built 
in... but installing on these machines was difficult.  Some built-in sound 
chips are difficult to support, too.  If you can, get a look at the board 
yourself, and identify the actual chipsets, then go back home and check how 
each are supported.

Google is your friend: http://www.google.com/search?q=linux+abit+kt7




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