building a new linux computer, need hardware advice/comments

[Tomcat]

I have ordered the Mandrake 7.1 CD
I have a Enlight case #7237 (w/300w Athlon certified power supply)
I have a Tyan #S2380 Trinity K7 motherboard
I have a 3Com/USR #5687 ISA 56K internal faxmodem
I have a Linksys 10BaseT EitherPCI LAN Card II

I am contemplating buying/using the following additional system components:
750 Athlon processor
128mg Corsair PC133 SDRAM memory, 3.3 volt, unbuffered
48x Memorex CD-Rom
Sony 1.44mg Floppy drive
20gig, Maxtor EIDE hard drive, UDMA 66
32mg ATI Rage Fury Pro video card (AGP)
Soundblaster "Live" PCI sound card

I intend to dual boot my system with Win98SE and linux. I will use the system for primarily surfing the internet and autocad work. The box will be the "server" on my home LAN.

Is any of the above hardware not compatible (or problematic) with the Linux Mandrake 7.1 OS? If you have other hardware component suggestions, please feel free to comment. I need all the help I can get with this box, since I have no linux OS experience.

BTW, this is my second attempt in building a box. I built a Pentium II system about 2 years ago, with PC Mech's build guide. It turned out great too.

Thanks in advance, for your help/comments!

[Charliey]

Im not sure if that modem will work it might be a winmodem, which only work in windozes, some 1 here might know if it is or not.

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-Charlie

[Great_One]

The modem should be fine, if its an isa based modem then it hardware controlled and is not a win modem. should be fine in a linux box


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Hmmmm, Never saw that happen before.

[revelation]

Sounds Great!!!
Have fun. If you do want to dual boot, load Windows first after partitioning your hard drive. My Windows partition is about 6 gig for Windows ( C drive ), 2 gig Windows ( D drive), and the remainder of the 20 gig Maxtor for Linux. It sounds like you did your homework. I am sure that this forum will be of much help to you!!!

[Tomcat]

Thanks for the good advice and comments, guys

[Statica]

u are going to love the 2.4 kernel or the 2.4.pre release/2.3.xx .. with the extended instructions for 3D now .. the athlon just screams on a linux

verify with Xfree86.org that your particular video card is supported.

If it will be the server, make sure you are aware and know how to secure your system. it is imperative. But all in good time I guess, depending on your setup

Cheers

[lynchmob]

I am also setting up a dual-boot system and was curious: are you running the win98 on the server and linux as a workstation? I have read that you cant run windows(or any other O/S)on the same machine, if you run a linux server setup but you can if linux is setup as a workstation. Just wondering.
lynch

[Statica]

There isnt an issue with running an alternate OS on any configuration of Linux. The only issue is why you would have win98 on something as critical as a server. If you can justify that .. then all is well

& as regards to me .. my LAN at home doesnt have win98 on my server.

[jad1097]

Linux-Mandrake 7.1 supported hardware.

[Tomcat]

I finally found time to finish assembling my new athlon box and it booted on the first attempt! I should have known it was a bad omen...lol Loaded all the software over a four hour period...and played with it for over an hour, then shut down the system. I tried to boot the system back up two hours later. It failed to boot because of drive errors. I ran scandisk and there were numerous bad blocks shown at the end of the drive. I isolated the bad blocks and rebooted the machine...it ran fine. The next morning, I tried to boot the machine and got the same drive error message! I ran scandisk again and it showed more bad blocks! I took the drive out of the machine and took it back to Staples for a replacement. I installed a new maxtor 20 gig drive, reloaded the software and the system now has been running for last two weeks with no problems....

Thanks for all the help!

BTW, I chickened out on dual booting linux on the server machine at this time....but I did do a dual boot installation, to play with on my client machine. The linux install was easy except Im having a config prob and cant start X yet. I will discuss that problem in a future post, if I cant figure out the problem soon. I suspect a video card prob now....

[Tomcat]

Sorry, but I need some more linux for dummies help......

After I installed Linux Mandrake 7.1 on my client pentium work station everything went smooth until I tried to start the X window system. When I keyed in "startx" and hit enter, I got the following screen printout:

(II) Module mouse: vendor=“The XFree86 Project”
compiled for 4.0, module version = 1.0.0
(II) r128: Driver for ATI Rage 128 chipset: ATI Rage 128 RE (PCI),
ATI Rage 128 RF (AGP), ATI Rage 128 RK (PCI), ATI Rage 128 RL (AGP),
ATI Rage 128 Pro PF (AGP)
(--) Assigning devise section with no busID to primary devise
(--) Chipset ATI Rage 128 RF (AGP) found
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/liv/modules/libvgahw.a
(II) Module vgahw: vendor=“The XFree86 Project”
compiled for 4.0, module version = 0.1.0
(II) r128(0): PCI bus 1 card 0 func 0
(EE) r128(0): No Display subsection in Screen section “screen1” for depth/fbbpp
8/8
(II) Unloading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libvgahw.a
(EE) Screen(s) found, space but none have a usable configuration.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

When reporting a problem related to a server crash, please send
the full server output, not just the last messages.
This can be found in the log file “/var/log/XFree86.0.log”.

X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
[myusername@localhost myusername]$


What does all of this mean? I assume it's a video configuration problem listed in the second "EE" line, relating to "screen1" . It appears that my ATI rage video card is linux compatible hardware because of the new support versions from the XFree86 Project.

Can anyone tell me what the problem and fix is? Please, I need to know the answers in plain english...not techno geek talk! As you can tell, my experience with the linux OS is almost zero.

Any help, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance guys!

[lynchmob]

Great One, not to question you per se, but,I thought most winmodems were isa based?
I know that not all isa modems are winmodems as I have a good isa hardware modem(Supra Express 56i sp)but your reply was a bit confusing
lynch

[Xayd]

Other way around.

Most Winmodems are PCI, few Winmodems are ISA, although there are a few.

Tomcat, what resolution did you choose when you installed this on the second box? Some screen resolutions are iffy before you update drivers after you get everything up and running.

I personally always set up during the install for 640/480 just to be safe, and tinker later.

Xayd

[Tomcat]

lynchmob, its been my experience that most PCI modems are winmodem....and ISA modems are all hardware driven! Someone please correct me if Im wrong.

[Tomcat]

Xayd, I don't even think I set the screen resolution, the installation of linux mandrake 7.1 was automated install with almost no manual configuration. I will check that out if I can figure out where I need to go to do it, thanks!

Sorry, I told you I was a linux newbie!

[Xayd]

There are a few ISA Winmodems. The original Winmodem from USR were ISA if I remember correctly.

On the video thing again, look for an option during the install to test your configuration. It will attempt to set it up for you, but you should be able to specify differently. If one resolution doesn't work, test another until you find one that does work.

Again, you should be able to do this in the installer and tinker with it later, unless the new Mandrake installer has taken that option out.

Xayd

[Statica]

On console run setup* util and tweak X server configuration.

*-setup tool must be installed, it usually is on standard installs.

Cheers