I'm tired.......I need something new and invigorating!

Unless you are on a really slow connection, I wouldnt bother buying either. Download the discs and burn them, then donate some funds. HEMI mentioned this too. Though, this is all assuming you have a fast connection and a burner of course, heh.

I am not sure why you won't go with an MX4* or FX 5200, can you give some insight on that? Both are great budget performers for *nix (minding that ATI is nearly out of the question). A trip to pricewatch will give you some insight, those are about the only two sets of cards you are going to get for less then $50 which will be capable of any gaming.

@HEMI
The reasons for not seeing so many *BSD questions with easy answers might be more related to the average experience of a BSDer. Not many new-to-nix computer users find BSD and, if they do, choose it. Linux has been more popular and 'trendy', very much so recently, and thus has been generating a lot of new users asking a lot of silly questions :) Silly questions come from new user volume, just look at the mainly Windows section :)
 
Tweakin said:
The reasons for not seeing so many *BSD questions with easy answers might be more related to the average experience of a BSDer. Not many new-to-nix computer users find BSD and, if they do, choose it. Linux has been more popular and 'trendy', very much so recently, and thus has been generating a lot of new users asking a lot of silly questions :) Silly questions come from new user volume, just look at the mainly Windows section :)
Click to expand...
There tends to be a higher experience level in the FreeBSD community, true. However, maybe being able to RTFM/Google should be a prerequisite to posting questions...

Linux has buzzword status right now. Hopefully that'll wear off soon and people will realize there's other OSes out there...Although if it draws in eternal n00bs they can keep using Linux...
 
alrighty then, I'm going freeBSD for sure. Just need some hardware recomendations, as I'm going to put this together soon. What I'm thinking was a cheapo socket A mobo with a thunderbird @ 1.33. What chips work good with BSD? SiS 746 has my interests currently........could find a mobo with that nbridge for $35. Also, there are those c3 cpu's, I was wandering how those performed, a mobo with an i-cpu(integrated proc) could be very...... "economical." I was thining about an ATi video card, because I'm not going to play games, I'd just as assume that ATi's 2d drivers function acceptably. plus, the cards are like $30 cheaper then anything from nVidia's alley. How does a Rage Mobility card sound? or should I just stick to radeon 8500LE? theres a $15 between the 2, the lower @ 20. Planning to go with a Creative SB128 for audio, will this hold? It's so damn hard to find info on the web (outside the [H] of course:D).

Trying to keep this pc under $400. How much hdd space do you think I need?
 
If you want it to be hard...


www.LinuxFromScratch.org

Period, end of thread :)

It isn't THAT difficult, but it certainly is more of a challenge than Gentoo even, which I had a relatively easy time getting set up.

I recommend you start with Gentoo, a stay with it for a month or two adding and removing stuff -- the knowledge you'll gain from the install (or failed install :p ) will give you good momentum for building your own distro. With LFS, you WILL learn the ins and outs of Linux and exactly what makes it tick. Gentoo's installation is mostly automated with the "emerge" command so you don't really know what's going on behind the scenes.
 
bountyhunter said:
alrighty then, I'm going freeBSD for sure. Just need some hardware recomendations, as I'm going to put this together soon. What I'm thinking was a cheapo socket A mobo with a thunderbird @ 1.33. What chips work good with BSD? SiS 746 has my interests currently........could find a mobo with that nbridge for $35. Also, there are those c3 cpu's, I was wandering how those performed, a mobo with an i-cpu(integrated proc) could be very...... "economical." I was thining about an ATi video card, because I'm not going to play games, I'd just as assume that ATi's 2d drivers function acceptably. plus, the cards are like $30 cheaper then anything from nVidia's alley. How does a Rage Mobility card sound? or should I just stick to radeon 8500LE? theres a $15 between the 2, the lower @ 20. Planning to go with a Creative SB128 for audio, will this hold? It's so damn hard to find info on the web (outside the [H] of course:D).

Trying to keep this pc under $400. How much hdd space do you think I need?
Click to expand...

You have chosen wisely. :)

As far as motherboard chipsets, I've had good luck with Via-, ServerWorks- and Intel-based motherboards. Since you're going with AMD you're pretty much limited to Via, SiS, AMD (although not many AMD-based boards are made these days, if any) and NVIDIA for the motherboard chipset. I have a KT400-based board as my full-time FreeBSD workstation without issue, but I'm guessing the SiS stuff will work fine...I haven't personally dealt with any SiS-based boards running FreeBSD. You might consider checking FreeBSD's HCL.

C3s perform between 1/2 and 2/3 as well as an equally-clocked, same-generation (686) CPU, depending on what you're doing and who's numbers you believe. They do fairly well for most things, but serious work requires more oomph a lot of the time.

ATI video cards...I have a 9100Pro in my dual PII Xeon box that runs FreeBSD. DRI works quite nicely and the 2D performance is decent. I'm not sure what core the Rage Mobility is, but if it's R2xx-based DRI will probably support it.

The Creative 128 (I'm guessing an Audigy) should work fine. I have three or four of them kicking around here in FreeBSD machines and a couple more sitting around at work waiting to be put in FreeBSD machines.

Sounds like you'll have a nice little learning box. Take a look at FreeBSD's hardware pages for the latest -RELEASE on the web site to figure out what is and isn't supported.
 
I'm using a R100-based Radeon 7000/VE here, and it's ok, so if that mobility is R100-based it'll work as well. Not really fast, but very usable.
As for the SiS-chipset, there's some sporadic posts about problems on newsgroups (thanks, google groups), but it looks like it should work fine (perfectly, even) in 5.2.1.
 
Both the 4.10-RELEASE Hardware Notes and the 5.2.1-RELEASE Hardware Notes are good resources.
Worth checking out before you buy a particular component.


If it helps, here's my complete system specs:

FreeBSD 4.10
Shuttle AK35GT2 mobo (VIA KT333 chipset)
Athlon XP 1500+
384MB PC2700
40GB Western Digital HD
Geforce4 Ti 4200 w/ 64MB
Sony XDM-X72 display
Onboard Cmedia sound
Altec Lansing 2100 speaker system
Netgear FA311 ethernet card
External Modem Blaster (serial port)
Sony 16x CDR/CDRW
Samsung DVD drive
Canon S630 usb printer
Epson Perfection 1200U scanner
Wireless keyboard & mouse (PS/2)
 
Just to extend that image:
MSI nForce2-based MB
Integrated audio
Athlon XP2000+ (It's at 1700+ now, purely for heat/noise reasons)
Radeon 7000
Some intel 100MBit network card
The internal nForce network card will work with an unofficial driver module, but I had the intel card lying around so I didn't bother. Other than that, no problems.
5.2.1-RELEASE

Asus PP-DWL MB (Intel E7505-based)
Integrated intel Pro1000/MT network card
Integrated (ICH4-based) sound
SB Live!
Promise Ultra100 IDE controller, PCI card (On HD on this one, HD + CD-R on internal IDE)
Radeon 9800Pro
No problems here, though no accelerated 3d. Both soundcards work fine, too.
6-CURRENT

More interesting is the computer I've taken over in a school lab:
(Dell GX270)
Unknown, intel-based MB
Integrated i865 graphics
Integrated sound, Analog Devices AD1981 (AC97)
Integrated intel Pro/1000 network card
SATA Hard drive
CDRW/DVD
I had to flash to a newer bios, and then increase the memory allocated to the video card from 1 to 8 mb to get any acceptable resolution/depth, but except for that I had no problems. I didn't notice that it was SATA until the guy beside me swore over his OS install disks not supporting it.
6-CURRENT

edit: Added versions.
 
bountyhunter said:
so, how much h-drive space do you guys think I should get, just to be safe?
Click to expand...

Anything above 10Gb should do fine, but more never hurts. If you haven't got any spare disks, any new one will be more than big enough.
I've managed to compile and install kde and gnome on 2x2Gb+ 1Gb, but it took some work. (compile a part, install, clean, repeat until done.). Less could work if it was split differently. (Having a maximum 2Gb for /usr isn't pleasant, even if you split out /usr/ports to another HD.)
 
Yeah, 10G is a good "bottom" number for a system that'll be "nice" to work with. My XP1800+ full-time FreeBSD machine has a 10G drive and I haven't ran out of space yet.
 
great! I have a nice 40gb I should be getting back from maxtor for RMA next week. I guess I'll just get an 80giger for windows(instead of something bigger). I'd rather do with out windows.......but I have an ATi card and DooM III(or any other game) isn't realy an option on linux, so I guess windows will have to stay, at least for a while.
 
bountyhunter said:
great! I have a nice 40gb I should be getting back from maxtor for RMA next week. I guess I'll just get an 80giger for windows(instead of something bigger). I'd rather do with out windows.......but I have an ATi card and DooM III(or any other game) isn't really an option on linux, so I guess windows will have to stay, at least for a while.
Click to expand...

Right, that should work fine. 40 Gb is positively roomy unless you want to make a file server. (Those eat disk space for breakfast. [1]) . I guess planning how to partition it might be a good idea. Hemi, how does this look?
1Gb swap
1Gb /
512M /tmp
512M /var
the rest (37Gb) /usr
More space than I've ever needed on /var and /tmp, and a rather big swap file, but he's got the space to err in that direction.


[1] I have 170Gb on 2x120Gb disks on the FreeBSD server, shared to the windows computers over samba, and the BSD machines over NFS. I just deleted 20Gb of stuff. :rolleyes:
 
File system partitioning? If it's just a workstation, stick with the defaults unless there's good reason to change them.
 
shieldforyoureyes said:
A big /home is nice.
Click to expand...
/home is usually a link to /usr/home, so a big /usr will do that.
I might just be a control freak, but I like manually partitioning my installs :D
 
HHunt said:
/home is usually a link to /usr/home, so a big /usr will do that.
I might just be a control freak, but I like manually partitioning my installs :D
Click to expand...

Ah... is that (/usr/home) true of all Linuxes? I'm used to
/home being a mount point by itself. (My /home at the moment
is a pair of mirrored drives.)
Irix likes /usr/people.
 
There's no enforcable standard for Linux. I've seen it done both ways. More distros of Linux go with /home for user dirs.

HHunt was talking about FreeBSD. In FreeBSD-land, by default home dirs are listed in the password and shadow files as /home. However, /home is a symlink to /usr/home. There's nothing stopping you from using a large partition at /home, but if I'm dedicating a large amount of space to home directories I generally do it at /usr/home. I've also been known to change the default user dir location to /usr/home in the right spots, but I probably won't continue that practice since there's really no point.
 
so what's a nice, newb friendly code I should learn? python, c#, java?

and does anybody have any idea how powerful 500mhz ultrasun IIi procs are? and where I can find a mobo that supports them? I can get these at about $20 each, and that seems like a nice deal to me.......

recomendations for a dual proc system(cheap though)........
 
It depends upon what you want/need to make. If you want to start with a scripting language usable on the console and web, PHP is easy to learn and very newbie friendly. If you wanted to get into any serious kind of programming you could go right into C++, or possibly something like python.

I have never really understood why people want to learn to code just to learn to code, I always figure having something that needs to be coded helps.

Probably a better question for Webmaster and Programming, but, just my 2cents.
 
Actually, I was planning on making a few games and what nots, maybe some other sorts of random programs, like a music player and such.....

EDIT

Does anyone know anything about the P440FX intel motherboard? I was wandering, maybe I could build a cheapo dualy out of one of these w/ 2 200mhz pentium pros. It seems it needs a Voltage Regulator module, and I have no clue what that is or which ones this mobo supports. I can get the mobo for dirt cheap, but I want to know if it's worth it or not. Also, will this give me "good" performance in freeBSD, or are these procs just 2 outdated? I realy want to build a dually.......
 
500MHz UltraSPARC IIi, dual? That's a nice machine, and one I'd like to own. There are probably fewer compiled packages for FreeBSD/sparc64 than for x86, but compiling is easy. How long it will take depends on what you're going to install, of course.
Getting a SPARC MB isn't the easiest thing, however. Buying a complete machine would be easier (a Sun Blade, for instance), but you could check eBay. Be aware that it might want an unusual power supply and probably won't fit a normal in a normal ATX case.


However, the Tbird is going to be more familiar (small things like having a PC-style BIOS), and will run windows. A 2x200MHz pentium pro will work fine, but it is a significantly slower computer. I would guess it's a bit on the slow side for desktop use, but it might be ok.
I don't know anything about voltage regulators and compatibility, sorry.
 
can't find sparc motherboards for the life of me.....whole systems are in the thousands of dollars.....

anyways, here's a nice system update, here's what I'm looking @:

FreeBSD 5.2.1
40gb hard drive
case w/ psu(duh)
2x700mhz celeron coppermines(these are smp capable, right?)
socket 370 coolers
512mb pc100 SDR
sound blaster128
geforce 2 mx
Gigabyte via apollo [some chipset number] dual cpu mobo, agp:D

that's about it......

so, are copper celerons smp capable? planning to OC these bitches to 100mhz bus. is that [H]ard or what?
 
I hate to tell ya, but Celerons over 533MHz (and Coppermine 533s even) aren't SMP-capable.
 
Actually, sun systems aren't all that expensive if you dig around on ebay.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
If you are planning on playing any games I would suggest dumping the MX card and going back to a GEForce3 Ti 200/500 or GEForce4 card.

My old GEForce3 Ti 200 card kicks my current GEForce4 MX440 all over the block. If it wasn't for the hassle of taking my GEForce3 card back from the wife I'd be running that in my FreeBSD 5.2.1 machine.

I'm running a FX5200 card right now but the nVidia support for it has been kinda goofy. The OpenGL screen savers don't work properly with the FX5200 but did with the MX440. Man, I wish I had a Ti 4600 to put in my FreeBSD machine.

I run FreeBSD 5.2.1 with an Asus A7N8X DLX and have the nVidia NIC up and running and basic sound support. I had a real good experience with the CMedia chipset that I had on an old Soyo Dragon Plus! motherboard. Compiling pcm support into the kernel gave me 4 channel sound which really surprised the heck out of me when I fired up KDE.

I was able to play UT2K3 with the GEForce3 Ti 200 and XP 2400+ processor on my old Soyo Dragon Plus! board (which is now the system for my wife) with no problems.

I would also suggest that if you just want to play around with FreeBSD that you download the 45 day trial of Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 and build it virtually and play around with it before comitting it to actual build.
 
sorry for the delay, but I finally ordered my stuff tonight

as of not to be left out of the linux thing, I got myself a copy of SimplyMepis after *spectacular* reviews.

oh, and of course freeBSD 5.2.1..............but I'm scared. how easy will it be to upgrade to 5.3 once that comes along?
 
bountyhunter said:
sorry for the delay, but I finally ordered my stuff tonight

as of not to be left out of the linux thing, I got myself a copy of SimplyMepis after *spectacular* reviews.

oh, and of course freeBSD 5.2.1..............but I'm scared. how easy will it be to upgrade to 5.3 once that comes along?
Click to expand...
By the time your stuff gets here 5.3 may be out. If I were you I'd download the latest 5.3-RCwhatever disc from an FTP mirror and use it instead of 5.2.1. Upgrading will be much less painful using the RC than it will using 5.2.1.
 
yeh........but I have no idea how to make ISOs. couldn't I just upgrade some time down the road? plus, I'd need to upgrade later anyway, so I might as well get the experience now, right?
 
under windows, any decent cd burning app will have an option to make an iso disk. Make sure you dont just make a data cd with the image on it though.
 
bountyhunter said:
yeh........but I have no idea how to make ISOs. couldn't I just upgrade some time down the road? plus, I'd need to upgrade later anyway, so I might as well get the experience now, right?
Click to expand...
You download the .isos. You don't need to make them. You just use some app that can burn CD images (just about everything under the Sun) to burn the image to CD.

Upgrading from 5.2.1 to 5.3 may not be a smooth upgrade. The biggest sticking-point is a few of the major libraries had version number bumps and all of your ports are going to be built to link against the old versions. You'll at least need to rebuild just about everything you have installed. Your best bet will be to download a 5.3-RC2 .iso and use that.

500MHz UltraSPARC CPUs? They are tanks. They are work-horses that are built to never die. However, they aren't fast CPUs. SPARCs are nifty, but if you just want to run FreeBSD I'd stick with i386-arch CPUs.

Cheap SMP? Anything used. Look around. Why do you particularly want SMP? Two slow CPUs will get its ass handed to it by one fast CPU in 95% of the things you're going to be doing with it.
 
actually, I managed to sell an athlon xp 3000+ I had lying around and buy a motherboard and a Duron in place of it. It's not what I hoped for, but it's good enough.........

Anyways, I know cd burning apps have iso options, but there's just so much different crap. I tried to creat a bottable knopix disk, it just wouldn't work........
 
What burning program are you using? Most of them will know what to do if you just double-click on the .iso under Windows.
 
I'm sure there are several ways to do this, but this is how I burn isos in Nero:
In the classic mode:
File->open, find the iso image
Accept everything, burn.
As has been said, it's not very hard. :D

And the Duron will be fast enough for most things, though it might hold you back in games.
 
how about OCing that duron? Do you think it's safe to up the voltage a little, because It doesn't boot @ 2.16(166 double). I'm sure the voltage is holding it back, but I don't know what's safe...............
 
[H]EMI_426 said:
Find something and use it. What's going to work for one person isn't going to work for you.

Operating systems are tools. It helps to have a task in mind before you pick a tool to use for the task. Do you want to run a webserver? A file server? What do you want to do?
Click to expand...

I'm sorry guys, I didnt read the last 2 pages, but I wanted to ask you something real quick..

I am another, completely fed up with windows....

I'm going to try to go into linux full force, but keep windows on my laptop if i need anything.

I"m looking at building a box completeyl for linux, with an A64, in a shuttle, and some Nvidia card. I must admit, I was quite a game fiend, and I"ve been reading up about things like WineX and cedora, and I want to be able to run Battlefield just as well as on windows, is that possbile? I know ut will run just as well, but how do the things run THROUGH those programs. Will the performance be comparable, or is there a specific distribution that does better than teh rest in the gaming department?

I'm sure others are wondering.. so thanks!!

~Daniel
 
it won't be as good, but it should be ok. they don't put as much effort into their drivers, so that's why that is.

anyways.....

I ordered freeBSD from the freeBSD mall about 3 weeks ago.......and I still haven't gotten anything......anybody know anything about this? They won't respond to my email.......
 
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