[H-GEN] Linus my linux box

[Frank Brand]

Conor Cunningham wrote:

> Hey folks,
>                 I am getting a new Linux box next week.
> Specs
>             -P60
>             -16 megs of ram
>             -540 Hardrive
>             -2spin Cdrom
>             -sound card
> I was wondering if any of you nice intelligent people (oPiate turns on
> suck up mode) could tell me good things to upgrade to make Redhat 5.0
> run better etc...

I have reservations about upgrading. Lately its a serial thing - you want a
better CPU , oops really need a new motherboard an upgraded BIOS different
chipset etc etc. You wont be able to do anything with the chip as that
motherboard is a 5 volt board and any later chips other than the 66 were all
3.3 volt or lower. Unless you want a big installation ( a full RH 5
installation with lotsa goodies will easily devour a 540 Mb HDD) the HDD seems
adequate and if you want better disk performance you need a new HDD then a new
motherboard that supports higher transfer rates and a new cpu coz those
motherboards are 3.3 volt etc etc.

I think the only things you could really do (other than get a bigger disk  and
it's arguable if you even need one) is to upgrade memory and video card.
Depending on your memory configuration it might be a bit wasteful to do that
even but a video card upgrade might help (but make sure any upgrade is
supported by X Windows). Possibly you will be limited there also depending on
whether your board supports PCI. The early Pentium 60 boards were often VIP
(Vesa-ISA-PCI) boards which had timing problems that slowed them down
considerably or VESA boards. The plain VESA -ISA or  PCI-ISA boards were faster
than the VIP boards. If your board supports PCI then a S3 2Mb card would cost
about $60 new and offer a good selection of colours and resolutions. Personally
I do not think the cost saving of a 1Mb board (save about $20 over a 2 Mb
board) is worth it. If you are an avid CDROM gamer the CD could get an upgrade
but for my purposes the 2X would be adequate and depending on the make of your
sound card it might stand upgrading. Previously Linux best supported
Soundblaster cards and, although other cards are increasingly supported (some
by proprietory  sofware - ie a gotta pay) Soundblaster is still best supporte
by RH 5. But most soundcards are about 30 buck whereas Soundblaster are $70
plus.

That's some thoughts anyway.

--
Frank Brand
E-mail: fbrand at uq.net.au
Homepage: http://www.uq.net.au/~zzfbrand



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