Monday, July 26, 1999
05:36 PM
This is the page I'll use to ask questions. None of these are beyond my ability to figure out by reading the manuals, but perhaps we can save some time.
IF YOU GOT HERE DIRECTLY, please go to the Home Page, or What Is This Place?, or even What's New. If you are interested in the BYTE Fiasco (or if you don't know there was a fiasco), please go look there. Don't just send me mail without finding out a little about this place. I understand that many Linux enthusiasts have been directed to this section without passing through the home pages. We'll both be better off if you find out before you turn on your flame thrower.
MOST OF THESE HAVE BEEN taken care of. I leave this page here more for historical archive purposes than any other. I'll change this if there's anything new. I have put later comments up in orange.
First question: video boards
Second: Sound
Third: partitioning
Four: ethernet
W 98 eats any of those. Which VIDEO BOARD should I use to have the least problems with Linux?
We ended up with a Diamond video board, the Stealth 220, that works just fine; see the installation log for details.
Sound boards: I have several Creative ISA boards, an Ensonic PCI, and some el cheapo Sound Blaster Compatible ISA boards. I mildly prefer PCi to ISA, but it's not that important, and I don't expect this system to want a lot of sound anyway. I also have a Diamond MONSTER SOUND.
Recommendations?
I still have no sound working in the Linux Box but I have not tried very hard for it.
Partitions: I understand that a 100 meg partition for the Linux Swap File is a good idea. Should it be larger? And do I use fdisk to create that partition before we start? At the moment this machine has a 1 gig W 98 partition, and nothing else. What do I do next? Just start with Linux installation, or reserve some space with a new partition?
THE PARTITION PROBLEMS SOLVE THEMSELVES at least with Red hat: that is, there is a wizard (they call it a Druid I think) that will take care of it. Partitioning in UNIX is a matter of religion. Apparently you don't really need a lot of partitions. In any event, do not bother with Fdisk; Red hat Linux and I am sure many others have better tools better integrated. Have faith: boot up with the Red Hat boot disk and see what happens. Many of the problems will be solved by that.
Ethernet: will an ISA Intel thin net board work? It's one of the early EtherExpress boards.
We found that a Bay Networks 10/100 PCI card ($30 or so at Frys) worked fine. A SOHO Fry's el cheapo 10/100 is not recognized by Linux, or at least not with the versions I have. The Bay Network card does work, and is in the installation data base, so installing is no problem at all.
