New computer and Fedora 10

My new computer has finally arrived and last weekend I had time to put it together. With the Fedora 10 release this week I should be having a good time now. Here is what I got:

• Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe AMD 790FX / SB600
  
• 4GB RAM
• AMD Phenom X4 9350e
  
• Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Ultimate
• 2 * Western Digital Caviar WD10EADS 1TB
• a couple of new Papst fans

I tried to order things which save a little bit of power and are easier to cool so I can run them quieter. I also decided on a ATI graphics card because they are releasing information about their hardware and are not stuck in the past like Nvidia.

So I cleaned my old computer case, removed the dust from the last five years which required me to take it apart and put the new stuff inside. I first tried it with my old hard disks and Fedora 9, because 10 had not arrived yet.

The computer started and everything was nice and fast and shiny. But after a few reboots the only thing I got was beeeeep - beep beep beep. After a trip on the internet I found out that I picked one of the motherboard + graphic card combinations which don't seem to work. So now I am running with a borrowed Nvidia card until I buy a new motherboard or Asus comes up with a new BIOS.

I obviously also contacted Asus and Sapphire support, but it just confirmed my opinion that this is completely pointless. Asus answer was along the lines of "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and Sapphire did not even bother.

But I still had Fedora 10 to look forward too. And so I installed it on the new hard disks. It is pretty much the same, but maybe I am just difficult to please. Here are some short notes:

• the faster boot is indeed faster, but I don't care because I don't boot that often
• the flicker free boot just works if you have the right graphics card and on a full moon
• NetworkManager still hates me and static addresses ...
  
• but now system-config-network hates them too ...
• and so does anaconda ...
• so install with dhcp
  change your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*
  chkconfig NetworkManager off
  chkconfig network on
  service stop NetworkManager
  service start network
• compiz does not work with either the Nvidia or the ATI card
• I am looking forward to play with the new versions of eclipse & co
  

To NetworkManagers defence I must say that it is very nice on my Eee PC, I just don't see the point on a desktop / workstation. The Eee PC is still downloading with preupgrade, so lets see how that goes.

Next hardware upgrades are for the firewall, backup server and htpc, which are all from 2002. I can mostly use hardware I already have and just get new cases and fans so that they stop sounding like a fighter jets landing. And I obviously have the spare M3A32 too, so that gets a Athlon X2 and goes into the htpc. Hardware can be so much fun ...

Oh ... and I am probably the last person arriving in multi core and 64 bit country. nice.