Paul Sherman (psherman++at++pobox.alaska.net)
Mon, 25 Oct 1999 23:21:52 +0000
Cool. Welcome to the wonderful world of Performer and Linux.
> I assume that the machine should have the faster processor
> and as much memory as I can afford. How about drives; is
> the faster access time of a SCSI drive important? ( For that
> matter, does Linux have problems with drives with more than
> 4Gig of space? That apparently was a problem when trying to
> install NT4 and RedHat 5 on a single drive. )
Yep. More CPU, more RAM. I personally think that a multiprocessor
machine is the best choice if you are buying now. Performer on Linux
does not yet supprt this, and the linux kernel is a little weak on it,
but both of those improvements are mere months (or is it weeks) away.
Certain Linux experimental kernels already have much better SMP support.
I have always used mixed scsi/eide systems. Some people like all scsi.
You may run into problems with eide drives bigger than 8.4GB, but again,
that may be fixed already. I have no problem with my 18gb scsi drive.
No matter what you do, BE SURE THAT YOUR HARDWARE IS COMPATABLE. See the
links below for information about which hardware works best.
Incompatable hardware is no fun, unless you like hacking the kernel to
include support for your "WonderMatic SCSI-II" card.
Problems with multiOS installations on disks have to do with the fact
that the boot sector for the OS needs to be within a certain number of
cylinders (1024 I think). But again, I think that that limitation may be
solveable. There are other issues involving multiOS with linux, but
there are numerous solutions.
> I expect that the SGI machines would be the best, but is
> the price difference worth it? Do you need a special version
> of Linux to access the two processors?
I am not sure that the SGI machines would be the best. You will have to
have SGI clarify their position on hardware accelerated opengl for the
320/540.
To use multiprocessors, you need a linux kernel with SMP support
compiled in. Most (all???) of the major distributions provide for this
option now. If not, then you will need to recompile the kernel to get
it. Not too hard. The instructions are complete.
> How about graphics cards? Is it correct that there are
> no Linux accelerators for the 320 hardware? A quick check
> at www.linux.net/hardware/components.html lists no graphics
> components.
I like the nvidia cards now. I am working on two differnt machines one
with a TNT2 and one with a voodoo2. I am also experimenting with
snapshots of Xfree86, but have not gotten too far with that.
> Any information or pointers to information would be greatly
> appreciated.
Okay. try:
www.linux3d.org
www.mesa3d.org
www.linux.org
www.xfree86.org
www.precisioninsight.com
and start following links.
Keep in mind that this area (3d GFX acceleration under linux) is
extremenly interesting right now. There is much happening. It is quite a
bit of fun.
> Thanks,
>
> Scott Herod
> scott.herod++at++colorado.edu
You are welcome,
Paul Sherman
psherman++at++pobox.alaska.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Mon Oct 25 1999 - 16:25:20 PDT