Hardware & Linux:

A short list of hardware I had the joy of working with. This is not a list of things I will help you install - I most probably won't have the time. It's more a list for people who intend to buy something but are not sure if anybody has ever successfully used it under linux, which sometimes is rather hard to find out and involves a lot of searching.

This list is not at all accurate and just resembles what I experienced at the time I tried to use this particular piece of equipment other than as paper weight or bottle opener. ;)

Things might have changed since then due to the uncounted people who constantly write new drivers and software...

• Compaq Deskpro 6300 Series / Deskpro EN SFF
  

  Can be very quiet, energy efficient (around 25W idle). I use it with a PIII 700 (FSB 100Mhz), but it has displayed a warning (Processor not supported -> F1) while booting ever since the newest BIOS revision. I undervolted the processor by applying adhesive tape to the voltage regulating pins, making it request 1.3V instead of 1.65V. Works stable, and the temperature is significantly lower while under heavy load permitting passive cooling (maximum of 70°C at 25°C room temperature).
  Since this computer supports booting from network, I use it as a diskless client (root over nfs).

  ACPI reading of CPU and chipset temp are supported. Powerbutton works with kernel parameter "APCI=force". S3 (suspend to ram) is not supported, normal standby (S1) might work - that depends on the configuration. Onboard sound is a bit nasty to set up (ISA, but I got it working some day using snd-sb8 - you need luck!), but disabled if the BIOS detects another sound card. The same applies to the onboard graphics card if a PCI graphics card is plugged in. What a shame.

  Tested PCI graphics cards:

  • Radeon 7000 PCI : works, but DVI output is flickering sometimes, DRI makes it freeze
  • Radeon 9250 PCI: BIOS hangs, no way to get it work
  • Radeon 9200SE PCI: BIOS hangs, I hate that thing. :(
  
  The BIOS of the Deskpro is indeed very, very basic.
  
  
• Allied Telesyn AT-2560FX
  

  0000:00:0c.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 02)

  As you can see, it will work with the Ethernet Pro 100 driver out of the box. My card had problems with autonegotiating the right speed, so I placed the following in my startup script:
  #eth0 speed
  ethtool -s eth0 autoneg off
  ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full
  

• M-Audio Revolution 5.1
  

  Works partially. Recording for example doesn't. Mic and Line in are played back (internal loopback) constantly and produce a not-so-nice white noise on the front channels. Rear- and Center/Sub-channels work fine and noise-free. I use one of those for my good headphones and the front channesl for PC speakers / an old amplifier. Noise disappears magically with bad audio hardware ;)

  Mixer-Channels are mono and not stereo (see ALSA Bugtrack entry and patch).

  Despite all the limitations, it's a very nice card because of the good DACs.

• USB GPS-Receiver BU-303
  

  No problems. Needs the "USB Prolific 2303 Single Port Serial Driver", which is in the kernel. The module is named pl2303.

• Promise Ultra100 TX2
  

  Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20268 (Ultra100 TX2) (rev 02)

  OpenSource drivers in vanilla kernel. Nothing more to expect. :)