Re: OT: Building a small home server

[steves]

Note that some AMD motherboards have problems with newer Linux distibutions -- and not just RH. I bought a K7VMM a while ago that runs fine with RH 7.3 but will not boot off RH 8.0 CDs, or off CDs of other distros made with similar kernels.

I got this one (1.33 GHz, 40 gig hd, 256M RAM) at a computer show for about $300 USD. No monitor (I have a KVM switch) but it came with a NIC, CD/DVD reader, keyboard, mouse and cheap speakers. The K7VMM also uses the VIA chip set.

[tretin]

"I bought a K7VMM a while ago that runs fine with RH 7.3 but will not boot off RH 8.0 CDs"

I had that same problem on my box, but I got the boot images (to copy to disks) and that solved the problem.

Currently I am running dual boot WIN2K/RH 8.0 off an AMDXP 2100+ (not sure what kind of board it is, but I can check when I get home if need be)

[neilwatson]

I've had troubles with VIA chipset boards. We have some Duron computers at work and the motherboards use VIA chipsets. I've found there are bugs that can affect CDROM drives (randomly fails to read) and sound cards (can play but cannot record).

The CDROM bug was solved by using drives that are not made by creative (LG's work well). I've not found a solution to the sound problem.

These problems exists regardless of what OS you run.

Neil Watson
watson-wilson.ca