Slackware compatible?

Longfellow <not RemoveThis @this.address> wrote:
> You can certainly buy a firebreathing machine for less money that what
> one would spend in upgrading CPU, mobo, etc, etc, etc. But would it be
> Slackware compatible?
>
> Here's what I'm looking at:
>
> HP Pavilion p6112p-b PC Bundle from Staples for $830US and change.
> Which has...
>
> Intel Pentium E6300 Dual Core processor
> 8 Gb DDR2 RAM
> SATA HD 1Tb
> SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe Technology
> Intel GMA 3100 integrated graphics
>
> It's got a monitor and keyboard and stuff, of course.
>
> It's probably too much to ask anyone reading here whether or not this
> product with arguably meaningless specs will have problems with
> Slackware, so maybe I should ask where I should seek answers. Is there a
> resource that can satisfy these questions, and if so, would someone be
> good enough to point me in that direction?
>
> The reason I posted here is that I don't want to have to use tweaked
> kernels and drivers and such just to make this all work.

Most machines I've tried nowadays run linux out-of-the-box
without much trouble, but occasionally needing extra drivers
for not-so-standard stuff like atheros-based wireless.

But in your same price range ($866/free shipping) I recently bought
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350249617817
an i7-920 with an asus P6TSE mb, 6GB ddr3, 1TB hdd, nVidia GeForce
9400GT, lightscribe dvd, and the de rigeur cheap kb and optical mouse.
The well-reviewed mb has firewire and esata in addition to the usual usb2.

Not suggesting you should buy that particular box, but I'm pleased with
it, and slackware 12.2 installed without a hiccup (though that's
32-bit so I'm only seeing the low 3GB memory).
But I am suggesting that HP box you quoted looks pretty crummy for
the money. Maybe you want to look some more. And the i7 seems to
be the up-and-coming chip to look for.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j RemoveThis @f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:46:27 +0000, JohnF wrote:

> Longfellow <not.TakeThisOut@this.address> wrote:
>> You can certainly buy a firebreathing machine for less money that what
>> one would spend in upgrading CPU, mobo, etc, etc, etc. But would it be
>> Slackware compatible?
>>
>> Here's what I'm looking at:
>>
>> HP Pavilion p6112p-b PC Bundle from Staples for $830US and change.
>> Which has...
>>
>> Intel Pentium E6300 Dual Core processor 8 Gb DDR2 RAM
>> SATA HD 1Tb
>> SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe Technology Intel GMA 3100
>> integrated graphics
>>
>> It's got a monitor and keyboard and stuff, of course.
>>
>> It's probably too much to ask anyone reading here whether or not this
>> product with arguably meaningless specs will have problems with
>> Slackware, so maybe I should ask where I should seek answers. Is there
>> a resource that can satisfy these questions, and if so, would someone
>> be good enough to point me in that direction?
>>
>> The reason I posted here is that I don't want to have to use tweaked
>> kernels and drivers and such just to make this all work.
>
> Most machines I've tried nowadays run linux out-of-the-box without much
> trouble, but occasionally needing extra drivers for not-so-standard
> stuff like atheros-based wireless.
>
> But in your same price range ($866/free shipping) I recently bought
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350249617817 an
> i7-920 with an asus P6TSE mb, 6GB ddr3, 1TB hdd, nVidia GeForce 9400GT,
> lightscribe dvd, and the de rigeur cheap kb and optical mouse. The
> well-reviewed mb has firewire and esata in addition to the usual usb2.
>
> Not suggesting you should buy that particular box, but I'm pleased with
> it, and slackware 12.2 installed without a hiccup (though that's 32-bit
> so I'm only seeing the low 3GB memory). But I am suggesting that HP box
> you quoted looks pretty crummy for the money. Maybe you want to look
> some more. And the i7 seems to be the up-and-coming chip to look for.

i would go for phenom II or i5

On 2009-09-11, Longfellow <not RemoveThis @this.address> wrote:
> You can certainly buy a firebreathing machine for less money that what
> one would spend in upgrading CPU, mobo, etc, etc, etc. But would it be
> Slackware compatible?
<snip>

Thanks to all for the info. I have come to the same conclusion: I
should do better than what I described. I've got more questions, but
I'll do the RTFM routine first.

Thanks again.

Longfellow

On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:46:13 +0000, bc20 wrote:

> Toshiba P505-8945

Er, Toshiba P505-S8945

It would be perfect if it had nVidia hardware.

JohnF wrote :

> Most machines I've tried nowadays run linux out-of-the-box
> without much trouble,

My old desktop computer was thunderstruck so I bought a "new" Acer M3201
because I had it cheap from a showroom. It came with two problems:

1): The on-board LAN was something based on a marvell chipset and the
sky2 module didn't do me any good. So I disabled on-board LAN i the BIOS
and plugged in a cheap 1G netcard from Ovislink and it worked out of the
box.

2): The graphic card was a ATI Radeon HD 4650 and it gave me some bad
feelings already at boottime because the three tuxes at the framebuffer
had their colors reversed. In the CLI it looked OK but when i started X
the colors was reversed again. I managed to install the fglrx driver
from ATI almost blindfolded and it cured the color problem.
--
Thomas O.

This area is designed to become quite warm during normal operation.

JohnF <john RemoveThis @please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote:

> Most machines I've tried nowadays run linux out-of-the-box
> without much trouble, but occasionally needing extra drivers
> for not-so-standard stuff like atheros-based wireless.


My laptop has an Atheros wifi card and I can report that it has always
worked flawlessly with Linux. Out of the box with several distros, or
just by adding the madwifi driver (which, however, is now officially
superseded by the ath5k module bundled with the Linux kernel).


--
~> cat /etc/*-{version,release}|head -n1 && uname -moprs|fold -sw72
Slackware 12.2.0
Linux 2.6.27.7-crrm i686 AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology MK-36
GNU/Linux

Dario Niedermann <M8R-cthw2f.DeleteThis@spamherelots.com> wrote:
> JohnF <john.DeleteThis@please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote:
>> Most machines I've tried nowadays run linux out-of-the-box
>> without much trouble, but occasionally needing extra drivers
>> for not-so-standard stuff like atheros-based wireless.
>
> My laptop has an Atheros wifi card and I can report that it has always
> worked flawlessly with Linux. Out of the box with several distros, or
> just by adding the madwifi driver (which, however, is now officially
> superseded by the ath5k module bundled with the Linux kernel).

Yeah, I needed madwifi when I installed linux on my samsung nc10
netbook last year, and that's what brought atheros to mind when I
wrote the above paragraph.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j.DeleteThis@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )