On Sun, Mar 7, 2021 at 5:11 AM IL Ka <kazakevichi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> When i got my last hardware, one challenge was UEFI booting, iirc. After >> dealing with it, i sort of lost track of what was happening in that arena. >> However, i don't want to get involved with that again. >> > > Motherboard firmware could be switched to the legacy BIOS/MBR mode, so you > do not have to use UEFI if you do not want to. > But I do not see any reason to do so: UEFI just works fine nowadays. > > In UEFI world, PC has a special small fat32-formatted partition with > ".efi" file: it is an application written for UEFI. Motherboard's > firmware (we call it BIOS, but technically it should be called UEFI) runs > this application and it loads OS. > In Linux, GRUB provides this efi app. > > If your harddrive is larger than ~4terabytes, you would need to use GPT > instead of MBR, and I believe you would need UEFI to boot from it. > > > >> I'm sort of thinking about getting a Dell Inspiron but maybe i should buy >> from a linux vendor instead, such as 76? Presumably at least in that case >> at least i wouldn't have to worry about the bios. >> > > It is better to buy a PC recommended by a vendor. System76 is good. Here > is another approach: https://certification.ubuntu.com/desktop > Otherwise you would need to check carefully that all hardware is supported > by Linux. > Not all devices have Linux drivers, unfortunately. > > >> I certainly would want to get something which supported 2 or 3 internal >> disks, but i would also like to get something that could be booted from an >> external usb drive. Does that make sense? >> >> Many motherboards have three SATA III ports. If you need something very > fast you may also use nvme. > Almost all motherboards produced in the last 13 years can boot from > external USB. > > Would it make sense to look for something where all usb ports are usb >> 3.0? I've never used usb 3.0 at home, so i'm kind of unclued. >> > USB 3 is much faster and backward compatible with USB 2.0. > You do need this speed for mouse and keyboard, but it could be useful for > pendrive. > All modern motherboards have 3.0. Even if some ports are 2.0, use them for > keyboard/mouse. > In most cases 3.0 ports are blue, 2.0 are black. > > >> In a way, i'd like to have something with 2 ethernet ports on the >> motherboard, although i've found that usb-to-ethernet is adequate for my >> purposes. >> > It is an uncommon requirement) Why? > Are you building a router or something with channel bonding > > > There are USB ethernet adapters, but if you buy one, double check that it > is supported by Linux! > Thanks IL for your message. I indeed use ethernet-over-usb currently, and it is fast enough for me. But if i had a second port, it would be a little less cluttered, so i'd like to do it if it is not too costly and doesn't interfere with other goals. :) dan
