[wellylug] Hardware compatibility

[jumbophut]

On 3/9/10, Peter Lynch wrote:
>
> I'm thinking of buying the "High-end business" spec pc from Ascent
> (http://www.ascent.co.nz/PCBuild.aspx), without the OS, of course.  Does
> anyone have any comments on the compatibility of the hardware components
> with Linux in general, and Debian in particular?  I'm also happy for
> recommendations of other suppliers, although I do like Ascent and have
> dealt with them several times in the past.

I think it would work, for some value of 'Debian'.

The separate graphics card is a bit doubtful in terms of Debian
support, but I understand nvidia's proprietory (i.e. closed source)
drivers usually work if you are prepared to go there.  You could
always substitute another card.  Open-source ATI 3D support is getting
better fast.

The on-board (or now with Core i?, on-CPU) Intel graphics are
officially supported by Linux, with an open-source Intel-originated
driver (Intel really seem to try hard; their graphics, sound, network
and wireless drivers all seem to work reasonably and be fully
open-source).  However, if you run an older kernel, such as might ship
with Debian stable, it might not yet include support for the latest
chipsets.

The rest of the hardware looks stock standard.

The only other thing I noted: HDMI+HDCP -- forget it (though that is a
generic Linux limitation, rather than Debian-specific).  You'll
probably get it in any newer machine, but you won't be able to use it.

-- 
Tony (echo 'spend!,pocket awide' | sed 'y/acdeikospntw!, /l at omcgtjuba.phi/')