Re: [tlug] New Desktop Computer

[Alain Hoang <hoanga@example.com>]

Hi,

Shawn wrote:
> HI,
>
> > DOS Para's machines have options for a few nVidia cards, as well as what they call "on board video" which is the default option for most of their desktop systems. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of option?
>  
>
> again no experience but suspect you may very well have a drive for linux
> by looking at 
>
> http://intellinuxgraphics.org/documentation.html which states
>
> The Linux graphics drivers from Intel support the following Intel®
> chipsets:

	As far as I know these days most on-board video is made by either 
nVidia or Intel.   If I had a choice personally I would choose the Intel 
on-board option as Intel actively supports open source drivers for their 
graphics chipsets as far as I remember.
	There is also the chance you could have on-board video made by SiS but 
I'm not sure how much they're in the running for more current hardware.
	When it comes down to is what do you want out of your graphics card?  I 
believe nvidia is rather well supported 2D in the driver that comes with 
X.org however if you want 3d capabilities then you'll start running into 
binary driver fun.

	If you want X11 to work with minimal then I'm rather sure if you with 
either nvidia or Intel the on-board video will be supported barring 
getting the latest and greatest motherboard. If you want 3d support then 
it starts getting into more trickier territory and you'll first have to 
try to identify what graphics chipset is on the motherboard.
	The easiest way to know for sure is to just look at the motherboard and 
try to track down the graphics chipset there.   Barring, manufacturers 
blatantly mislabeling chips on the boards, it's the best way to verify 
whether the on-board video is Intel, nvidia, SiS, or 
some-really-weird-piece-of-hardware.

	On a side note, I bought a Core2 Duo ready motherboard recently and 
have had tough love getting Linux working on it.  Seems there are some 
issues with the SATA controller and Linux properly detecting it without 
feeding some kernel parameter options and some other aggravating tweaking.

There is a wiki page on Ubuntu detailing this:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Core_2_Duo_Support

Cheers,
Alain