How to best choose hardware for Linux

Are you considering Linux but you fear your hardware might not be up to the task? Worry not. Here's a guide offering best recommendations for choosing hardware for Linux, including processor, disk with emphasis on hardware and software RAID and size (over 2TB, GPT partition support), graphics card, Wireless network adapter, and more.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-hardware.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Thank you Mrk, good advice, although I'd have to disagree in part about nVidia being no problems, because I've never been able to get 3D rendering to work on most distros, other than Ububtu, Mint, and openSUSE.

BTW, one of our 5 machines in the house is an old hounddog P4 1.7G, and I'm rather enthralled at how well Puppy (no pun intended ) runs on it. Fabulous distro for such old hardware by today's standards, and there are no hardware conflicts with it either.

 

Well, it's personal experience after all. Now, I got another mail from someone about optimus technology (dual gpu support) not being ready for linux. Now, I really can't talk about the future, but I can say what happened so far and hopefully extrapolate.
Mrk

 

I've never once been able to use linux (ubuntu/mint) due to driver support lol laptops are a whole other story.

 

again one of your great stuff mrk )

For desktop i have intel mother board and processor + nvidia card

intel are pretty common so i guss most of linux have their default support

never have much problem almost all linux distro expect one last i remember backtrack 1 or 2

for linux i recommend best buy common stuff if you are making your own desktop or choose the hardware details to see

for cards like mrk said nvidia is one of best for linux 100% agree but one thing i like to add go for best selling cards common ones if you want more support

like for i have nvidia 8600gt old card but it support almost all linux it was one of best selling card of its time and i buy it 2-3 years ago as price was pretty down

 

What? Use virtual machines then.

 

Nice, I heard that Intel is very supportive with providing documentation to the open source community and that Linux offers excellent video drivers for Intel chipsets. Gamers might not think high of Intel chips, but the focus here is compatibility.
With a Intel video chip instant switching between Xorg and text console is supported, no video reset in the kernel needed.

At least that is how I understand it.

 

If it works off a live CD/DVD/USB, it should work when properly installed. I have Mint 11 and MS Win dual booting on an old Dell Inspiron 1545 (laptop) without issues (though after installing Mint11 I booted into Windows just once to check it was still there).

 

Is my hardware Linux-compatible? Find out here.

-- Tom