bee wrote:www.linuxfromscratch.org/ appears to be a novel new approach to understanding Linux. You start by installing a minimal operating system, then slowly piece it together.

your comment about ubuntu had almost convinced me that you were a spambot, but this is good readings.

thank you much.

thebookofkevin wrote:

bee wrote:www.linuxfromscratch.org/ appears to be a novel new approach to understanding Linux. You start by installing a minimal operating system, then slowly piece it together.

your comment about ubuntu had almost convinced me that you were a spambot, but this is good readings.

thank you much.

Glad to help. When checking hardware compatibility it's beneficial to know which chipsets are on the hardware in question. For example, many of the wireless cards use different chips on the same model from the same manufacturer. Some chipmakers won't release the technical details on their products and that makes it very hard for the opensource community to write the corresponding drivers. Very exotic hardware is not always supported.
As I mentioned earlier using a live CD for a "test drive" is a great way to check a current system for compatibility without having to risk any alterations to your current setup, unless you specifically change the "write" permissions on your harddrive. You will also be given the option to load any special drivers not included with the distributions disk, rarely is this necessary. A live DVD contains an unbelievable, and intimidating amount of software to play with.

NVIDIA's graphics cards come with better lunix drivers than ATI's.

Since Red Hat started closing up some of their standards on the Fedora release, the buzz on Gartner and other useless and incorrect management consulting groups is that Ubuntu is the way to go with desktop Linux.

Will corporations drop Windows because of the price tag and move to desktop Linux? Not yet, any way, but they're all watching--buying the support rather than the software itself is starting to catch on as a cost reduction idea.

bee wrote: For example, many of the wireless cards use different chips on the same model from the same manufacturer.

Whoa. that seems a bit strange.


as far as chipsets go for audio applications, do you know (think?) that using a server board and processor will have more power in terms of recording and processing sound when compared to a standard desktop board (both having the same speed FSB and processor)?

i am guessing this probably depends somewhat on the processor architecture, but i don't know how that works exactly.


sidenote -- i'm asking all of these questions because i'm seriously considering starting a business that assembles professional-grade, linux-based computer systems (the structure and design of the system would be open, but, if all goes well, we'd charge about the same as what you'd spend getting all of the parts yourself) . i've yet to invest in any hardware as research, but so far i'm looking at intel xeon chips and the s500psl motherboard. maybe i should look at some amd chips as well?

thanks again, everyone here, for your help.

So I've been attempting to find yet again a Linux distro that would work for a laptop/desktop dual boot config, and/or a leaner distro for my wife's laptop that is a P4 1.6 GHz running with 256 MB ram.

DSL is awesome. It runs on my wife's laptop of the cd quicker than XP off the HD. Still no WPA encryption support for wireless cards.

I tried Xubuntu (Feisty), no WPA support. In fact, SLED 10 is the only distro I can find with WPA support. And to keep that running w/updates costs $50/year. Pointless.

So for you Unix/Linux experts out there - why won't any of them support WPA encryption? Is this some proprietary encryption format?

unarmedman wrote:So I've been attempting to find yet again a Linux distro that would work for a laptop/desktop dual boot config, and/or a leaner distro for my wife's laptop that is a P4 1.6 GHz running with 256 MB ram.

DSL is awesome. It runs on my wife's laptop of the cd quicker than XP off the HD. Still no WPA encryption support for wireless cards.

I tried Xubuntu (Feisty), no WPA support. In fact, SLED 10 is the only distro I can find with WPA support. And to keep that running w/updates costs $50/year. Pointless.

So for you Unix/Linux experts out there - why won't any of them support WPA encryption? Is this some proprietary encryption format?

re. WPA, if you're running something debianish or ubuntu-y, this might help:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=263136

Substitute gedit for text editor of choice with this walkthru, of course.

Xubuntu does allow a WPA-enabled network to be set up, just for the record. I'd suggest it or vanilla ubuntu would be possibly the best choices for your wifes' laptop, X for speed and U for user interface.
The reason WPA isn't enabled by default is the shitty state of driver support by manufacturers of wireless kit. It isn't hard to get going however, and any distro will allow you have WPA enabled - just choose your wireless device with slightly more consideration than the pricetag.
I've had good experiences with atheros chipset cards, I've got a dlink DWL-G630 that works well, and the onboard wifi on my Toshiba TE2100 worked out of the box with ubuntu 6.10. So I guess you don't need to look too hard, but do some basic swot prior to buying.

Um, I might have to describe my own wireless setup before you proceed - I use wireless on a media box at home, and allow unencrypted anonymous read-only access to a few drives from anyone/anytime. I don't allow access to my interweb connection for anyone outside my household, and I don't rely on wireless as my primary network connection at home. I wanted to be able to let my friends/random warsurfers park up outside my home and sift thru media, and it's worked well.
This setup suits me exactly, it may not suit you.

FWIW, for the linux digital audio crowd on this forum, all three of you, ubuntu studio (ubustu) is a very nice distro. You can apt-get install it as a meta-package, or download the 860MB iso to start afresh. It's basically the best parts of the Musix distro, but with ubuntu desktop polish and support.

thebookofkevin wrote:
as far as chipsets go for audio applications, do you know (think?) that using a server board and processor will have more power in terms of recording and processing sound when compared to a standard desktop board (both having the same speed FSB and processor)?

The short answer is No, it won't be faster/have more power. It might be more stable, depending on the chipsets involved, because server boards as a rule take no liberties with board layouts with regard to things like EFI/crosstalk.
But server boards bring their own set of issues to the table, so if you're going to be making servers, use a server board - if making workstations, use a workstation motherboard (look at the tyan.com site, go for the tiger or thunder range), and if making desktop machines use a desktop board. Each of these types of board is rather well adapted to its niche, so trust in the intended use.
BTW, one of the stronger fields for Linux is in the professional graphics arena, and if that's where you're looking, then AMD chips would be worth utilising for any machine running a raytracer. The K8's are nearing the end of their life, K10 is 6 months away, but even so, the K8 still kicks hard ass for stuff like POVray. At the moment the intel chips are generally faster for most other desktop or workstation stuff. The server-side choice is more task-dependent. Either way, don't necessarily preach the faith of one brand at the expense of the other, each has strengths, and the situation often changes radically over 12-18 month intervals.

skinny honkie wrote:re. WPA, if you're running something debianish or ubuntu-y, this might help:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=263136

Substitute gedit for text editor of choice with this walkthru, of course.

Xubuntu does allow a WPA-enabled network to be set up, just for the record. I'd suggest it or vanilla ubuntu would be possibly the best choices for your wifes' laptop, X for speed and U for user interface.
The reason WPA isn't enabled by default is the shitty state of driver support by manufacturers of wireless kit. It isn't hard to get going however, and any distro will allow you have WPA enabled - just choose your wireless device with slightly more consideration than the pricetag.
I've had good experiences with atheros chipset cards, I've got a dlink DWL-G630 that works well, and the onboard wifi on my Toshiba TE2100 worked out of the box with ubuntu 6.10. So I guess you don't need to look too hard, but do some basic swot prior to buying.

Um, I might have to describe my own wireless setup before you proceed - I use wireless on a media box at home, and allow unencrypted anonymous read-only access to a few drives from anyone/anytime. I don't allow access to my interweb connection for anyone outside my household, and I don't rely on wireless as my primary network connection at home. I wanted to be able to let my friends/random warsurfers park up outside my home and sift thru media, and it's worked well.
This setup suits me exactly, it may not suit you.

FWIW, for the linux digital audio crowd on this forum, all three of you, ubuntu studio (ubustu) is a very nice distro. You can apt-get install it as a meta-package, or download the 860MB iso to start afresh. It's basically the best parts of the Musix distro, but with ubuntu desktop polish and support.

Cool - thanks for responding to this, and the link. You said that Xubuntu does allow a WPA-enabled network. Is that using the instructions in the link, or it's built in network setup tool? I only saw unencrypted and WEP options for wireless setup.

And yeah, the wireless card in question here was one I had bought a couple of years before I ever tried any flavor of linux. So unfortunately, I did not consider *nix compatibility in purchase. Wouldn't make that mistake again!

I'm typing this wirelessly in Fedora 5. Getting wireless working took maybe an afternoon on Google and a bit of fiddling, but, depending on chipsets, it is definitely doable. I'm going to upgrade to 7 some time in the next week or so.

My desktop has FC4 on it and I've used Ardour to record some demos on that. I had problems getting multiple soundcards to run together on it so I went back to XP/Pro Tools for the time being, but the functionality of the software seemed good. I actually like how similar Ardour and Pro Tools are, because I find PT incredibly easy to use so there's practically no learning curve for Ardour. I'd definitely like to see it develop to a point where I can use it for commercial work, hopefully all that money from SSL should help with that, but at the moment people expect Pro Tools and so long as it runs stably on my machine I'm happy to keep using it.