New computer. So much memory, so little actual work done.

I finally got a new home computer after limping along at 500Mhz since '98. I like that startup-time of OpenOffice no longer has to be measured in minutes.

brief specs:

• case: Antec TX640 Black
• motherboard: ASUS A8V Deluxe
• cpu: AMD64 3000+
  
• ram: 2GB
• video: MSI FX5500 TD256 DDR
• DVDRW drive
• LG FLATROM L1710S 17" LCD

I tried Ubuntu 5.04 amd64, but ran into trouble setting up the partition on the 160GB SATA drive... I could partition it with Ubuntu's tools (or SystemRescueCD), but the first boot after installation would refuse to run e2fsck on the partition, complaining about a bad superblock.

To be fair to Ubuntu, I am dual-booting it on my laptop (Thinkpad T42) and so far it runs like a champ. Other than the winmodem, all the built-in devices are working... even suspend/hibernate!

Luckily, Mandriva LE2005 x86_64 installed without much hassle. It detected the built-in sound and other devices on the motherboard correctly. Mandriva / Mandrake is what I'd been running on our previous computer, so the transition won't be too horrible for my wife.

I downloaded Nvidia's drivers, and -- after a little experimentation -- I can drive both my old CRT and new 17" LCD monitor. Amazingly, Nvidia's documentation was actually helpful.

One bizarre thing was that although the LCD monitor says it works at 1280x1024... the Xorg log file showed that it didn't think so. So, now I've got TwinView setup for the nvidia card and it is driving both monitors at 1280x960.

Here's the important bit from my xorg.conf file:

Section "Device"
  Identifier "device1"
  VendorName "nVidia"
  BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce4 (generic)"
  Driver "nvidia"
  Option "DPMS"
  Option "TwinView"
  Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-60"
  Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "56-75"
  #Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,NULL; 800x600,NULL; 640x480,NULL;"
  #Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,1024x768; 1024x768,NULL; 800x600,NULL; 640x480,NULL;"
  Option "MetaModes" "1280x960,1280x960; 1024x768,NULL; 800x600,NULL; 640x480,NULL;"
  Option "ConnectedMonitor"   "crt,crt"
EndSection