#1 2016-06-19 10:24:59

NigelGreenway

Member

Registered: 2016-02-21

Posts: 24

New machine with 4 monitors

Hi,

I have been using BunsenLabs since Christmas 2015 and have been very happy with it.

I am now looking to move away from Apple hardware and build my own machine.

I would like to run it with 4 monitors, and have my MacBook running a 2nd screen at the moment which is fine and works well. However, my question is when building a PC specific to running Linux/BunsenLabs, are there certain hardware manufacturers I need to stick with? I remember Nvidia being the one to stick with back when using Ubuntu 7.x, and want to check that is still the case as well as any other hardware I should stick with?

I haven't built a machine for ~12 years, so want to get my research done first.

Any help is appreciated :oP

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 9,093

Website

Re: New machine with 4 monitors

Don't try to use brand new hardware with BunsenLabs, it probably won't work very well.

There was a similar question asked on the Debian forums so I'll just link my reply:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=617888#p617888

In more general terms, avoid the new Intel Skylake GPUs if you have any political inclinations in respect of binary blobs on your system.

If you are not worried about blobs then NVIDIA is probably the way to go for pure performance although AMD did recently mainline support for the amdgpu driver.

Avoid Optimus machines if you can, they are a PITA in GNU/Linux.

Also, *do not* buy a Broadcom wireless card, they are useless under GNU/Linux -- I recommend Atheros cards, they require no firmware blobs.

Finally, avoid ASUS motherboards -- I've seen too many support threads featuring recalcitrant UEFI implementations...

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Para todos todo, para nosotros nada

NigelGreenway

Member

Registered: 2016-02-21

Posts: 24

Re: New machine with 4 monitors

@Head_on_a_Stick

Thank you. A few questions:

> avoid the new Intel Skylake GPUs if you have any political inclinations in respect of binary blobs on your system.

What do you mean by this (sorry for a n00b question)?

I am looking at using NVidia cards, with the fact I will only be doing a small amount of gaming/photo editing/video transcoding and mainly development work; would I be best to buy 2 cards to drive 2 monitors each or will one card with the ability to drive 4 monitors be fine?

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 9,093

Website

Re: New machine with 4 monitors

avoid the new Intel Skylake GPUs if you have any political inclinations in respect of binary blobs on your system.

What do you mean by this

As nobody intimates, the term "binary blob" refers to software for which the source code is not available.

See https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software for more on the politics.

I would disagree that such things are unimportant for the reasons outlined in that link.

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Para todos todo, para nosotros nada

Snap

Member

Registered: 2015-10-02

Posts: 465

Re: New machine with 4 monitors

Finally, avoid ASUS motherboards -- I've seen too many support threads featuring recalcitrant UEFI implementations...

Just a note. While what HoaS said is totally true, there are ASUS mobos that support legacy (bios) or hybrid mode (both BIOS and UEFI indistinctly). Don't know if the current releases still have this feature, but for Linux better don't go for the latest and greatest hardware even for rolling distros. My not specially new mobo works wonders. Never had an issue booting anything. I cannot say the same about GPUs. Compared to mobos, it's a never ending fight.