[Techtalk] firewire info needed fairly quickly " HELLLLP!, please"

[jfweber at bellsouth.net]

**** " Imagine; all of everything that is or was, can be reduced to an equation less than one inch long !" Dr. M.Kaku ***

Hi gang,
I need to know about specific firewire pci controler cards that work w/
linux kernal 2.4+  (Off the top of my head I can't remember all those
added numbers. <sigh>) I want specifically to add a firewire card to my
computer ( being fixed because it broke under warrenty <heavy sigh> And
since the hard drive ( scsi , and the power supply are BAD andthe mobo
is "flakey" we discussed the posibilities of getting the parts from them
( Polywell) and having the repair/rebuild done by the guys who have the
computer now ( some sort of subcontracter deal I think... )

<hardware configuration as of today.. >
Things are in a bit of "flux" as they say , but this is more or less the hardware setup , expected.

 THE (new) mobo will hold 2 gigs of ram ( yay!) in two sticks .. I'm going w/ one  gig
at themoment ,  the chip is an athlon xp 1.5 gig ; mobo I think is an
asus w/ a Award bios ( isn't that another name for Ami?   Or perhaps it
was one of their nom du oem variants ?? )   5 PCI slots,  we already have the
scsi card ( Buslogic scis3 UW ) as it was in the origional box and linux
seemed quite happy w/ it.  300 watt power supply  IBM HD ( most likely as
they get that free , I think... tho if this one fails too , it will be
the third one ( 1st died during the first year of use , they ,Polywell, insisted we
had to send the thing to IBM , for them to exchange it, and after some
strange routing ( thru Malaysia? ); we finally got a new one, in it's box, which
we didn't open.. Pollywell's subcontracter  sent someone round to install it, and he COULD not
get the bios to recognise it ... so after much backing and forthing on
the phone the ( repairs and maintence subcontrators said for him to box up the drive and for us to box
up the computer and they would put it on the bench and find out what was
the problem.  I guess w/ 3 of the rather important components either failed or were "flakey"

it's  no wonder neither we nor the "experts " (that is a matter of opinion , I guess the guy seemed to be right out ofa training school , or former IBMer ).  White ss shirt w/ tie ,pocketprotecter, grey suit ... not quite a buzz cut, but hey , it's a newcentury, some things HAVE to have loosened up, no? ( any one else
recognise this guy as IBM ? <G> )
< why I need to know quickly>

Here's the problem, the first fella we were talking to at Polywell had
done a lot of prodict research for parts etc. and he had recomended this
pci firewire card as being linux compatable.  ( ads something ) But he left for the weekend
before we could get everyone co ordinated and do a call back for theorder. THE guy we talked to after that was a tad confused about theproduct , and gave one of those .. "I'm not sure and you want an answer
now , safest route for me ? No it wont work..."  but I got over ruledthen  and it was left out of the final order.
But I still need firewire , and I'd like to have it before I install
linux on the drive, so I don't have to recompile a kernal if that is
required. It's suposed to be standard issue  stuff... Sorry I don't have
the name of that card, but there must be others around , no?
So I'm looking for some wisdom, I guess .. and in this case I need an
answer quickly , so  abiding by the new rules , any boychix that have a
suggestion , please send me a private email , or if there isn't an
answer by 5pm EST ( US) may I express the wish that they not be in
violation ( nor me either) if they do jump in ?
I'm hoping there might be some  more general hardware discussion in
this  whole thing  as well.
Oh , one thing, it has to be scsi ( too many disks need to be accessed
at the same time, no matter how fast ide has become it still can't do
that )  How do we feel about dvd rw hardware ( other than it's expensive
at teh monment? ) I'm thinking in the not too distant future it will get
faster and cheaper. So I've begun a dvdrw "fund" <G>

<for future reference>

well, as long as I'm asking ...

what about video cards I have nvidia tnt riva2 ( or tnt2 ) It's not
here so I can't check this stuff ) it only has 32 megs ram on it. And
although it's not a gamer box I do need framerates as high as posible
and  3-d capability. But I don't want it choking either. I'm not looking
to watch (dvd) movies on it. just make some... <G>
Any help at all w/ these questions will be welcome by me ..

--
j

afterthought : Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy.-- Tom Lehrer