Hardware compatability questions

[CPounder]

Hello. I am new to linux as an OS but i know i want to switch to start switching to it because of certain things microsoft has done. I want to build a new system, mostly used for engineering, but has a gaming edge to it. I was looking at the MSI - K8T Master2 FAR Motherboard (it has onboard Gigabit LAN, Serial ATA, RAID, AGP 8X/4X, USB 2.0) and the AMD Opteron Model 144, 1MB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor. I was wondering if Gentoo supports this duel motherboard and CPUs. I know Gentoo is for people who are more familar with linux, but i enjoy puzzles and learn quickly. Thank you for your inputs.

[Griswold]

As long as you follow the guide at http://gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-amd64.xml
it should work. That will only give u a base system though, no gui. So you will have to feel comfortable with the command line. I recommend getting Mandrake linux for about a month or so and slowly try to do everything u would normally do from the command line, without using any of the gui tools. Remember, google.com/linux is your best tool, then man whatever, do man man, then man ls first in the command prompt. Then lastly, your other great tools are forums and irc. I dont know about the motherboard, but I assume it will work, and I do not own an amd 64, but I know people have gotten linux to run perfectly on it. Anyhow, once you get the base system all you have to do is just run emerge xorg gnome and configure the files and you will have a running system with the gui. Remember, if u get stuck in the command line, and u want back into X (the gui) just type startx.

[Griswold]

Oh yeah, one other thing, for gaming. If you use any windows games check out winehq.com and transgaming.org. wine and cedega are great tools to get games running.

[CPounder]

Thanks for the tips. I like to use my computers to their maximum use, so thats why i figured the gentoo would be best for my personality, but true we all have to start at the beginning and work our way up to the top. THanks agian.