[plug] Changing hardware on desktop

[Bret Busby]

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Cameron Patrick wrote:

> 
> On Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:53:44 +0800, Jon Miller wrote:
> 
> | Like to know if Linux is like the other OS's in that there is a
> | procedure when changing hardware.  Currently I have a Linux Red Hat
> | 7.2 installed onaa desktop.  The hardware is a ASUS motherboard, AMD
> | 750MHz, 512MB memory, DVD, CD-ROM, 3Ccom NIC, Soundblaster, WD30GB HDD
> | and a nVidia 64MB Video Card.  I m planning to change the to a EPoX
> | Motherboard (8K3A+) with DDR memory(currently DDR266), WD60 or 100GB
> | HDD and the other device I'm changing is the video card to a GeForce4
> | MX440.  In the matter of the motherboard in most OS changing this item
> | usually involved either a complete install from scratch or hardware
> | change program.  Is Linux the same when it comes to changing certain
> | hardware.
> 
> It should Just Work without any fiddling. The NVIDIA drivers for both Linux and Windows don't care which particular NVIDIA-chipset card you have, unless you change from a PCI to an AGP card, in which case you /might/ have to edit /etc/X11/XF86Config.  So long as you either leave the machine with two hard discs, or copy everything over from one drive to the other, and the partitions have the same numbers, then the hard drive upgrade should be okay.  The Linux kernel should autodetect everything about the motherboard which it cares about.
> 
> 

What is Linux like, with the 32MB TNT2 M64 card that is currently selling
for about $50-60? I want to upgrade the video card on my new(er) computer
that I am setting up, which has RH7.3 and Debian 2.2 and Win98 and WinNT4
on it. I haven't been able to get GNOME working on Debian, so the Debian
installation just exists.

That computer currently has a Trident 9750 or 975 with 4MB RAM, and WinNT4
only displays 16 colours using that card, and (from memory) the card only
gives resolution up to 800 x 600. I want to (soon) get a 17 inch monitor
running at 1024 x 768, and with at least 16 bit colour. I do not want to
buy an expensive video card, as I do not use graphics-intensive games.

Thanks in anticipation.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
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