# Linux supported HW... buying guide.

## tecknojunky

Maybe it sounds odd to be happy that your mobo goes mojo, but that's my case.  The reason is that it has an on-board SiS 630 video chipset and I have seldom been able to get DRI and OpenGL working on it.  I have to thank Thomas Winnishoffer for his excellent framebuffer driver.  No offence to the author of the driver, but the dri driver sucks.  I think it's SiS's fault for not publishing specs, and I'll punish them, I'll buy no more stuffs from them, until I either die or I buy the company.

In desperation, I switched to use my other box (former server) as the desktop box and which has a Voodoo3 2000.  But since I upgraded to Xorg on that box, I also lost DRI capability with it too.  

So, I'm going to buy another mobo, no on-board video controler.  I'll slot in the Voodoo 3 2000 in it (is the new server now).  On my current desktop box, I'll buy a brand new video card that is know to work well on Linux and is supported by the company to work on Linux.

Which bring me to my question for this thread...

What is the video card I should buy?

I'm currently limited to AGP 2X (it's an old board).  I dont play games (yeah, really), but I like eye candy on the desktop (ie: 3ddesktop).

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## StifflerStealth

 *tecknojunky wrote:*   

> I'm currently limited to AGP 2X (it's an old board).  I dont play games (yeah, really), but I like eye candy on the desktop (ie: 3ddesktop).

  You could get a cheap nVidia GeForce 2,3, or 4 off of eBay. Then you canoud use the newest nVidia drivers which allow you to do composite and RENDER really quickly. That will allow you to do all that transparency stuff. I haven't messed with the "real transparency" stuff yet, though. Or, you could find a VooDoo card. Those are like the best supported cards on Linux. Well, since you said that you are not going to do games, then a ATI All-in-one-wonder card would be cool if you want TV on your computer.  :Very Happy: 

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## tecknojunky

Here's a bunch of cards I could potentialy buy.  Anyone had issues with these?

```
LEADTEK 6600GT PCIX128MB TV+DVI RB            $259.99

(HDTV ready w/hardware monitoring WITH DOOM3 Full version)

LEADTEK MX 4000 AGP 8X 64MB TV RB      $41.99

LEADTEK MX 4000 128MB TV OUT RB      $53.99

LEADTEK FX 5200 128MB TV OUT RB       $56.99

LEADTEK FX 5700LE 128MB TV + DVI RB      $109.99

LEADTEK FX 5700LE 256MB TV + DVI RB      $134.99

LEADTEK A6600GTTD 128DDR AGP 8x TV+DVI RB   $289.99

LEADTEK 6600PCIX 128MB TV + DVI PCI-X RB   $159.99

LEADTEK 6600PCIX 256MB TV + DVI PCI-X RB   $186.99

LEADTEK GF6800 256MB TV + DVI PCI-X RB   $409.99

LEADTEK GF6200TD 128MB TV + DVI PCI-X RB   $139.99

LEADTEK TV USB 2.0               $104.99

LEADTEK TV 2000XP Xpert TV Tuner             **$69.99

LEADTEK PVR2000 TV Tuner              **$129.99** With $6.00 INSTANT REBATE

Radeon 700064MB DDR + TV Out RB   $39.99

Radeon 9250SE 128MB DDR TV Out RB   $53.99

Radeon 9550SE 128MB DDR TV +DVI RB   $69.99

Radeon 9600XT 128MB DDR TV+DVI RB   $164.99

X800 Pro 256MB DDR TV Out + DVI RB   $489.99

X800XT 256MB DDR TV+DVI+VIVO RB   $589.99

X800XT PLATINUM 256MB DDR TV+DVI+VIVO RB                  $629.99

Radeon PCI-X (PCI EXPRESS)

Radeon X300SE 128MB DDR DVI+TV RB   $85.99

Radeon X600PRO 128MB DDR DVI+TV RB $119.99

Radeon X600PRO 256MB DDR DVI+TV RB $136.99

Radeon X700PRO 128MB DDR DVI+TV RB $209.99

Radeon X700PRO 256MB DDR DVI+TV RB $269.99
```

What is PCI-X?  What is DVI and VIVO?

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## StifflerStealth

 *tecknojunky wrote:*   

> What is PCI-X?  What is DVI and VIVO?

  DVI is the is the Digital Video Interface. It's a long flat type plug that is suppose to be better than VGA. Ok, it is better than VGA. It allows for more advanced communication between the video card nd monitor, and is supposed to be straight digital rather than taken the digital video signal converting it to analog to go over VGA, and then converting it back to digital in the monitor. So, DVI is suppose to be faster because there is no conversion going on.

VIVO stands for Video In/Video Out. It allows you to export your display to a TV via regular composite video or S-Video, and allows you to import video from a TV/VCR/cable box ... via Composite or S-Video connections.

-Stiff.

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## tecknojunky

Thanks.  In the meanwhile, I've found this nice paper that vulgarize what PCI-Express is.  Looks promissing, but I don't need it on my 5 yrs old mobo.

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## Petyr

 *Quote:*   

> LEADTEK PVR2000 TV Tuner

 

I currently have that card in a little mini-computer (named shoebox) that I recently built. I haven't had time to test out the audio from it, but the video that's coming out is what I expect (pure static, and if I crank the vol really high I can kinda hear it...)

I'm getting cable TV tomorrow, so I'll be able to tell the world my exp with this card. Thus far though I'm pretty happy with it.  After I get this hooked up I'll post back my Myth setup experiences and gotcha's

specs:

MSI K8MM-ILSR  (w00t micro-atx!!)

AMD64 3000 skt 754

Kingston HyperX 512MB

Maxtor 250Gb SATA 16meg cache 7.2kRPM  :Very Happy: 

LeadTek 5200Fx (svideo out on this is pretty clean. I tested this with some anime dvd's)

Regards,

Petyr

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## Petyr

Issues with cx88 drivers (i.e. LeadTek WinFast PVR2000).

Blackbird design stuff doesn't allow you to caputure MPEG2 streams. (semi-lie, there's a pre-alpha quality driver out there... YMMV) Hence spending the extra money on the mpeg2 encoding hardware, thus far is a waste.

cx8800 cannot autodetect the card, so you need to figure out the correct card= tuner= etc etc (fairly easy). Even with that though every tv program I've used the hue is WAAAAY off, so I have to slam it up to like 85 to get good color correctness. This however has only worked for me in tvtime. xawtv doesn't seem to do it right for some reason.

MythTV refuses to play any audio from livetv. Just won't do it. Probably a config error somewhere but damned if I can find it from 2.5 days worth of searching. In addition, MythTv has completely borked hue as well, and unlike tvtime, I cannot get it to correct it as nicely. Then there is MAJOR artifacting with the RJPEG software codec with black color changes. If I switch the Mpeg4, my computer can do it (feel the power of amd64 3000! w00t!) but then I still have issues with it doing some interlaced crap on the screen.

All in all, this is a major pain in the ass to setup, especially since the prefered card (Happauge 250) IS DISCONTINUED!!! The new versions are ALSO using the cx88 chips!! GAAH!

I'm almost tempted enough to go and use win2k on this box just because it at least will work *sob* Gotta give freevo a shot at this first though. If I'm hella lucky it might just work.

Petyr

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## vonhelmet

```
LEADTEK TV 2000XP Xpert TV Tuner             **$69.99
```

That'd be quite a good bet.

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## Ctrl+Alt+Del

i bought a Saphire Radeon X800 and have discovered that it's the worst card i could have ever chosen, as i still have not managed to get X working with the ati-drivers. Wether that is ati's fault or mine is still unanswered...

In General i'd stay away from ati and stick to nvidia, maybe a GeForceFX5200, anything faster would probably be a waste.

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