[ubuntu-uk] OT CPU Advice

[Darren Mansell]

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008 14:21:15 +0000, "Chris Coulson"
<chrisccoulson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 2008/12/1 Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk>
> 
>>
>> On 1 Dec 2008, at 10:24, Darren Mansell wrote:
>> >>
>> >
>> > I sold my EEE PC about 10 months ago and for (almost) the same money
>> > built
>> > a very respectable rig with bits from ebuyer. My spec was:
>> >
>> > Decent Abit mainboard
>> > AMD Athlon X2 4200+
>> > 2GB Corsair standard stuff
>> > 2 x 250GB Samsung SATA HDD's (in Linux software MD RAID 0, it rocks)
>> > dual layer DVD-+RW
>> > 19" wide HannsG monitor
>> > Good quality case from eBay with decent PSU
>> >
>> > It was a grand total of about £300 but I had to make sure I got good
>> > components. Most important is the PSU as Rob says. I've always liked
>> > Abit
>> > motherboards. Foxconn are actually pretty good from my experience.
>> > They
>> > used to make Intel's own brand boards, not sure if they still do.
>> >
>> > The disk speed makes this computer feel very fast.
>> >
>>
>> I heard bad things about Foxconn boards and Linux a while ago, can't
>> remember if it was posted here.  I'm just a bit dubious now.
> 
> 
>> Rob
>>
>>
>> --
>> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>>
> 
> Rob,
> 
> You're probably referring to this:
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249
> 
> Regards
> Chris
> 

Very interesting. Back in my R+D days for a used-to-be well known british
PC manufacturer I had to do a lot with Windows WHQL testing. WHQL (Windows
Hardware Quality Labs) is basically Microsoft paying hardware manufacturers
to break support for Linux or any other OS.

There are test suites called the HCT tests. The mainboard BIOS, VGA card
BIOS, optical firmwares etc all had to be bodged to work with these tests.
Microsoft would give you kickbacks via the MDP (market development program)
if your stuff was all WHQL certified.

Of course every system integrator is then under pressure to get every piece
of hardware in their PC's WHQL certified and in turn put pressure on the
hardware manufacturers to alter the BIOS/firmware to make it work for the
Windows HCT. As money talks they have no time left to look at Linux
support.

It's all just another way Microsoft have to make Linux look like some cheap
joke. Open standards are their enemy.