[H-GEN] Recommendations for AMD 64bit H/W

[ciphernaut]

On Sun, 2006-02-05 at 13:38 +1000, Ronald Bradford wrote:
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> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I'm wanting to upgrade my Linux server, so I'm going to take the plunge 
> and buy new H/W.  I've sort of decided to go with the AMD Athlon, to 
> trial both 64 bit, and AMD, both of which I have neither tried.  Before 
> I rush out and buy a motherboard, could anybody give me recommendations, 
> or more specifically bad experiences of linux incompatibility.

I recently (6 month ago) setup Debian on a Dell (poweredge?) 430 server.
As the stock kernel did not include SATA support for that chipset yet,
it took a bit of fudging to get it onto the system (install on PATA
drive, grab testing kernel, hook that in with a tweaked initrd for the
SATA driver, and migrate the install over to a software raid partitioned
pair of sata drives... the system worked with a simulated failure on
either drive).  I guess the point is, if you are going for newer
hardware, you may need to be prepared to spend getting it setup
properly.


> 
> For H/W I'm looking at a 3000+/3200+ CPU,  2GB RAM, onboard LAN/Sound 

You get what you pay for.  I dont like seeing realtek cards in
production systems, these chips are often used on motherboards....  I
have seen to many of these die out in the feild.  That said, if your
looking to go gigabit ethernet, it will either need to be embedded in
the motherboard, or you may want to go pci express

> and suggestions for a video card that can do dual head.  Currently, I 

Video display on a server?  If you only need 2D, a matrox g550 is quite
solid and easy to configure.  Mine came with an adapter to supply a
signal to two analouge displays though I only used it with one.  I
beleive it was also possible to obtain an adapter to supply a composite
video out for use with a tv.

> use a Raedon, but it looks like the newer cards with digital output can 
> run 2 analog signals with a converter  (anybody doing this to confirm 
> would also be most helpful)
> I'm planning on using either CentOS 4.2 (which is my current OS), or try 
> SUSE 10.

HTH,
Marco