Re: I Want to identify best Linux approach, and any pitfalls.

Dances With Crows wrote: 
On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 21:25:26 +0000, The Natural Philosopher staggered
into the Black Sun and said:
Dances With Crows wrote: 
On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 18:09:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher staggered
into the Black Sun and said:


First of all thank you for a very useful and detailed response.

I am not a Linux newbie...I have been involved in the past with installation and commissioning and software development..its just I sold that business some time ago, and relaxed in the knowledge I would never have to configure sendmail again...

except that I suppose I am getting bored and frustrated with Windoesn't, and need a bit of a challenge.

So my knowledge is dated...

<snip>

I'd like to play DVD's as well, but I understand there are issues. 
xine or vlc or ogle.  No problems using xine here.  You'll have to
install libdvdcss, but the RIAA aren't going to go after you for
that.


That should be "MPAA".  I get large stupid organizations that end in AA
confused sometimes....

Ok..so there is ripped libraries around that dare not be sold or
openly given away..?


libdvdcss is freely downloadable from many mirror sites all over the
world.  It's just that most distros don't include that particular
library because they fear lawyers.  I know .uk isn't as litigation-happy
as .us is, but you should see what I mean here.

Right. We used to have the same issues with libcrypt...missing from SCO distributions due to DOD restrictions on export beyond the USA, but downloadable from ...somewhere :-) ..and utterly essential to get a POP daemon running on SCO..I think I was the first person to ever port that.. 

Ideally I'd like to use an integrated cheap motherboard with Intel
graphics chips. Built in sound and networking etc.

"Cheap" is the *LAST* thing you should look for in a motherboard.  In
x86 machines, the motherboard is the thing that's the most difficult
to diagnose problems with, and the thing that's the most difficult to
replace.  Also, Intel's graphics chips suck.
Cheap as in inexpensive, not cheap as in utter crap. 

With computer hardware, you generally get what you pay for.  There is
usually a positive correlation between how much you pay for a piece of
hardware and how well it'll work.  Given that, you *never* buy the
cheapest piece of hardware you see via http://pricewatch.com/ unless you
have much more time than money.

There are three reasons why hardware is expensive..because its built to a high standard, because its built using expensive parts, or because it is fashionable.

I don't want extreme performance, or fashion. I want just rock solid reliability.

That's why I want to stick with my supplier. He has never ever quibbled about replacing anything that didn't work for ME in MY application.

When I ran my computer businesses, on several occasions the staff insisted on going elsewhere..we ALWAYS had issues with cheap stuff bought mail order.

That supplier probably sold me a couple of million dollars of kit over the years..he never let us down. Thats worth the premium, to me.



I don't want to play games. At best I want to watch video 

Most graphics cards now support XV acceleration, so this is less
worrisome than it was in previous years.

Good news. I had hoped we had moved on from utter incompatibility to some semblance of compatibility.

t active - Yuk. I want to click to make it active - stuff like that. 

Click-to-focus is the default behavior in KDE and GNOME.


GNOME sounds like the one for me then. My X windows knowledge is rusty and sketchy, but I do know the UK's most prolific technical author on that subject..if I have to...


Mozilla(Windows) != Mozilla(Linux).  There's a Firefox extension for
Firefox(Windows) called "view in IE" that uses the IE rendering engine
to draw a broken HTML page.  This extension doesn't exist in Linux,
because IE's renderer doesn't run natively in Linux.  It's possible to
use Wine or Crossover Office to run IE in Linux in some way.  I haven't
ever done this because I don't need to do it, but YMMV.

Its not a total show stopper...I may have to WINE up IE then for that particular site - its the ONLY one I use regularly. Its java breaks all but IE6 rendering engine.

You may care to see for yourself. http://UK.warrants.com (no www)



Let me try again.  Most cameras identify themselves as USB devices of
class "mass storage" via USB standard protocols when they are plugged in
to a USB 1 (or USB 2) port.  The usb_storage module then retrieves the
mass storage device's manufacturer and model#, and implements whatever
model-specific workarounds are necessary for the device to function
properly.

In many modern distros, the "hotplug" system gets alerted whenever a new
USB or Firewire device is attached to a machine.  This hotplug daemon
then typically loads all modules that are necessary for that device to
work.  It may do other things, like mounting the device and creating a
new Konqueror/nautilus window that shows that device's contents.

Right. Things have moved on a lot. What is indicated above is better than I had hoped for. Auto recognition, auto mounting and even auto spawning of some related UI...love it.



Any discussion on CAD and 'artistic' drawing programs that run
native would be of extreme use. I will pay for the [right] software
here as this is something I use a fair bit.
No idea about CAD. What do you mean by "artistic" here? 
in general CAD cares more about exact dimensions and very little about
appearance of the drawings..whereas artistic stuff will have a lot of
features for e.g. textures and shadings...


Sounds like you want something sort of like MacDraw.  I don't typically
need or use this type of software, though I've used POVRay to do a few
things that are similar, so I can't really advise you on this.

No..this is the biggest bugaboo I have left to tackle. I may just leave this machine up with Corel entirely for the purposes of...=CAD and games.


http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d845gvsr/index.htm 

Don't go uATX unless you have special requirements like "fanless" or
"must fit in tiny space" or "I have too much money".  These things
usually cost more than ATX boards and are a PITA to expand.  Also,
searching for "d845gvs" on pricewatch and newegg returned 0 results, so
this may not be popular or available from vendors.

Mmm. I will ponder all that.The graphics chipset on that board appears well supported..at least with my vendor, if it don't work he will swap for something that does..

I hear they have Linux User Groups in .uk; Google for
"$NEAREST_LARGE_CITY Linux User Group" and see what you find.  Most LUGs
would be happy to burn you an install CD for just about any distro you
could think of.  They're usually a good source of local support for
Linux questions as well.  (Yes, they've got some seriously bad anoraks
in them sometimes, but oh well....)


Oh, I am occasionally a seriously bad anorak - I have several friends who run loads of Linux..its no big deal to borrow a machine for half an hour and burn a CD..they just aren't linux Gurus as such -0 they use it but not much beyond as a development platform for specialized tools.


prefer to use a board from my local supplier, simply because we have a
15 year relationship of no questions asked top quality support..he
doesn't do AMD..


If your local supplier "doesn't do AMD", fire your supplier.  AMD just
has too many advantages in bang/buck to put up with one vendor's crap.

See reasons above. I will put the question to him though. His general reason for not doing various makes of hardware are usually supply/support/reliability issues. If anything gets a high return rate, he won't stock it. His market is not particularly the anorak market, so much as local businesses who want rock solid product and are prepared to pay for it.


I have heard that ATI are not hugely compatible..he does XFX cards as
well...and one thing I might want to do is go for a 3 meter video
cable using digital video (DVI) to an LCD...so I could build the
machine into a 19" rack rtather than have it on or under the desk? Pie
in the sky?


The most important thing is not whose "brand label" is on the cards, but
the make of the video chip on the card.  As others have said, nVidia is
the easiest to get working and the best for 3D support.  pricewatch says
the XFX cards they list are nVidia, so that should work OK.


Ok.

For the LCD, I thought you were trying to keep the cost low.  CRTs are
still cheaper, and they offer better contrast ratios and multiple
resolutions without interpolating.  Most 19" racks that I've seen don't
fit on or under a desk, but rackmount stuff is another thing entirely.
You typically pay a premium for rackmount hardware, and it can be a pain
to attach peripherals to a rackmount machine or upgrade a rackmount
machine's hardware.  Ah well, HTH anyway,


I have a restricted desk space here, and a 19" rack with space in it in the corner..I have tried a LCD on the wifes mac, and once we matched the native res to the card..performance is more than good enough. Its a question of what I want at the lowest possible price..what I want is a small footprint and reliability. A small rackmount case is not too expensive..it also has the advantage that a couple of screws in the rack make it look and be far less attractive the next time I get burgled. As far as inserting disks and so on goes, and other peripherals - well I can extend the USB ports to here..its only a couple of meters - and I very seldom would need to access the rest of the kit. These days the Internet is the peripheral..

What I wanted to know is whether DVI or whatever it is - new to me - is OK over 3 meters of cable..VGA is really a bit marginal at that range..

I'd use bluetooth for the keyboard and mouse..
.

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