Linux on a Dell

[mordantmonkey]

So i tried putting linux on my Dell a couple of years ago when built my first PC. It had hardware compatability issues that i just didn't feel like dealing with at the time.

Well i'm tired of 98 crashing all the damn time, and just had to clean a trojan infection thanks to one of my drunk friends...

So i'm willing to give linux another shot. It seems ubuntu is the distro of choice around here. is it the most compatible distro? Does anyone know of any hardware issues i'd have with a dell? and if so, how to get around them?

it's a dimension 4100, P3 ~997MHz, sb live value soundcard, GF3ti300 video card, and some no name NIC. i pretty sure the modem card will still give me greif, but i'll just yank that sucker out (what is dial-up?).

I'd also like to network it with my main XPhome machine if you have any suggestions there.

thanks

 

[Nothinman]

I can't forsee any problems, you'll need to install the nvidia-kernel stuff if you want 3D support but the sound and NIC should work out of the box.

 

[mordantmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I can't forsee any problems, you'll need to install the nvidia-kernel stuff if you want 3D support but the sound and NIC should work out of the box.

apparently this is waht i need to read up on... i have no clue about this.

also, i have a storage disc (120gb on fat32)... will this work with linux? or will it have to be reformatted?

 

[Nothinman]

Sure you'll be able to use the FAT volume in Linux, you might have some issues with permissions since FAT doesn't have any and you'll have to tell the kernel what id to use for the emulated permissions.

As for nVidia, try this URL, it's for an older version of Ubuntu but I think it all still applies:

http://www.ubuntuguide.org/#installnvidiadriver

 

[mordantmonkey]

would it just be better to just change formats? especially since i want to network it in the future? not sure if the "permissions" would create problems with networking.

 

[Nothinman]

There's no easy way to convert from FAT to anything else without a commercial tool like Partition Magic and even then that's iffy. Permissions won't cause any problems if you have them setup right =)

 

[mordantmonkey]

Well i'd rather just cut all windows ties. guess i'll just move all of my important files onto my main rig (got plenty of storage space right now). And start from scratch. linux doesn't use fat right? what the hell does it use anyway? guess i should find that out by myself...

 

[Nothinman]

Linux can use FAT, it's just not recommended because it's a really crappy filesystem. Linux has support for like 60 filesystems, but for your main filesystems you'll want to use either XFS or ext3. ext3 is the more conservative of the choices because it's on-disk compatible (for the most part) with ext2 and a lot more tools can understand it, XFS gives better performance for large files and large directories.

 

[Slowlearner]

Use a Knoppix Live CD to test the hardware configurations and check that everything will work - if Knoppix works so will Ubuntu/Xandros/Simply Mepis/Suse and Opensuse/Fedora core4 - they all look alike and I have personally tried them out on old Compaq/Dells P3 450.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: mordantmonkey
So i tried putting linux on my Dell a couple of years ago when built my first PC. It had hardware compatability issues that i just didn't feel like dealing with at the time.

Well i'm tired of 98 crashing all the damn time, and just had to clean a trojan infection thanks to one of my drunk friends...

So i'm willing to give linux another shot. It seems ubuntu is the distro of choice around here. is it the most compatible distro? Does anyone know of any hardware issues i'd have with a dell? and if so, how to get around them?

it's a dimension 4100, P3 ~997MHz, sb live value soundcard, GF3ti300 video card, and some no name NIC. i pretty sure the modem card will still give me greif, but i'll just yank that sucker out (what is dial-up?).

I'd also like to network it with my main XPhome machine if you have any suggestions there.

thanks

I'd recommend others before Ubuntu.. Its a cool little distro, but I've seen much better hardware detection on other distros personally. Although Ubuntu should be able to support everything on that pc. Only thing I'm not sure about is the sb live card. Maybe someone else might know.

I think SimplyMepis and Suse are easier to use, but I guess Ubuntu has excellent community support. It shouldn't matter too much.

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Linux can use FAT, it's just not recommended because it's a really crappy filesystem. Linux has support for like 60 filesystems, but for your main filesystems you'll want to use either XFS or ext3. ext3 is the more conservative of the choices because it's on-disk compatible (for the most part) with ext2 and a lot more tools can understand it, XFS gives better performance for large files and large directories.

What about Reiser? Its never destroyed any data for me, always recovers when I shut down the pc in a disruptive fashion, and from what I've heard is faster than the others.

 

[jhu]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
There's no easy way to convert from FAT to anything else without a commercial tool like Partition Magic and even then that's iffy. Permissions won't cause any problems if you have them setup right =)

linux can use usmsdos, which hacks permissions onto fat filesystems using a hidden file. however, since kernel 2.6, i haven't seen it in the filesystem options.

 

[Nothinman]

Although Ubuntu should be able to support everything on that pc. Only thing I'm not sure about is the sb live card. Maybe someone else might know.

SBLive has been supported for years, since at leat 1999, whether or not the installer chooses the OSS or ALSA driver is the only issue and a small one at that.

What about Reiser? Its never destroyed any data for me, always recovers when I shut down the pc in a disruptive fashion, and from what I've heard is faster than the others.

Reiser is one of those things that a lot of people say "works fine for me" and a lot if other say "it's crap!!" so I tend to avoid it. It's supposed to be fast for a lot of small files, so I tried it on my Cyrus mail spool a while back and had some 'interesting' corruption occur. Personally, I wouldn't trust Reiser with anything other than my /tmp folder and I would rather just make that tmpfs if push came to shove.

linux can use usmsdos, which hacks permissions onto fat filesystems using a hidden file. however, since kernel 2.6, i haven't seen it in the filesystem options.

I wouldn't trust umsdos just because I've never used it. FAT is crap compared to virtually every other filesytem out there and if the system is to be Linux only, why subject yourself to such crap?