[H-GEN] Buying a new Linux Box

[Anthony Irwin]

Ivan Miljenovic wrote:

> Anyway, I've been using Gentoo Linux as my main OS on my laptop since
> about July last year, and I'm wanting to get myself a desktop now so I
> have something with a bit more "grunt" (so that I can play with
> Compiz/Beryl, etc.).  Are there any computer stores in Brisbane that
> are "Linux-Friendly", i.e. they will build a system that only uses
> hardware that has Linux drivers?  Southside is preferred...
> 

Hi,

I am not sure about Linux friendly computer stores but you should be 
able to take a live cd and try it in a computer you are thinking about 
buying if you are getting the same as a display computer.

As for graphics cards I believe that nvidia are still the best last 
time I checked the ati drivers where still buggy (is that still the 
case?).

Your laptop may be able to handle beryl fine. I have a laptop with an 
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 card in it and beryl works 
flawlessly.

Try the following:

$ glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes

If direct rendering says yes then beryl will work fine. You will need 
to compile xorg to have aiglx support there should be a gentoo wiki 
page on it that will tell you what you need to do.

Unless you want to do so stuff with heavy duty opengl or graphics like 
games or something similar then you should not need a beefier graphics 
card.

Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin