Recent content by bdavids1

I think it should be the same. If you've got an incoming ethernet packet (for example -- it really could be any input), it will transfer into memory, and then the NIC will generate an interrupt which will be handled by the appropriate interrupt handler. That's the down dip in the process after...

RAID5 takes a big performance hit for write operations. The memory on the card is used to hide that performance hit from you (write-back cache). If you're frequently writing new files which are very large (larger than the cache), then more memory would help. If you're writing files which are...

A Knoppix CD will also work. 'dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb', assuming that your existing disk is identified as hda and the new one is hdb. You can check via fdisk (the new drive won't be partitioned yet) -- just print out the partition table and exit without writing changes. Knoppix doesn't...

That seems like a lot more work than just using up 1 extra drive and creating a RAID array... The data's not so important that I feel I need to do backups, but it would be nice to not have to worry about a single drive failing. Anything I really want to keep I would burn to DVD. I'm looking...

If it's just a 'storage drive', put frequently accessed data on the first partition you create (OD of the disk). Least frequently used goes on the inside. That's assuming you can break things up that way. It should give you better performance, as you'll minimize head movement (mostly staying...

I'm looking at doing something similar. I figured I'd use software RAID and LVM on the backend, so I could do RAID5. I would hate to loose data just because one drive died. I figured 4 or 5 drives per RAID5 array, and then add multiple RAID5 arrays to the LVM Volume Group. XFS seems so...

I always just go ahead and install the OS while it scrubs -- the scrub will continue in the background. I've never had any problems. Anything you write to disk is going to get the parity information set correctly. When the scrub comes around to those blocks, they're already set correctly, so...

Cool. I thought so, but the way the recording/movie industry is screwing consumers over I wasn't positive... So the HDCP handshake is optional -- only takes place when a source is about to provide copyrighted content? I finally found a copy of the specs... I'll RTFM and see I suppose...

If I have a video card which outputs DVI-D, wil that work with a HDTV which has a DVI-HDCP port? I realize that you can't feed a DVI-HDCP source into a non-HDCP system. I haven't found any clear answers on the PC's DVI-D into DVI-HDCP though. I'm looking to put together a HTPC this summer...

Maybe traditionally, but now it's also UNIX geeks who are picking them up. UNIX on a laptop, w/ a RISC processor? First thing I asked is where to sign up... ;)

How wiped out do you want it? You can just use fdisk to get rid of any partitions, just as you would on Windows (the Linux fdisk is way more powerful). If you do this, the data still exists on your hard disk, but it's harder to get to. If you just want to wipe the system to do a re-install...

DC Power for Via Epia mini-ITX: http://www.mini-box.com/pw-70.htm I haven't gotten my epia board yet. Something got messed up with the order (I didn't get charged though), so I'm going to have to re-order it. I do have the power adapter listed above, as well as a Compact Flash adaptor...

PCI Express will be great. The current PCI on typical desktop systems is already becoming a bottleneck. It's the bottleneck if you try to go with Gigabit ethernet, for example. Sure, there's 64-bit PCI and PCI-X which provide much more bandwidth, but PCI Express goes way beyond the existing...

The reason I got a Mac (Powerbook 12") is that I wanted a really good UNIX laptop. I'm working on a Master's Degree in Computer Science, and UNIX/OS X provides the tools and flexability I need. "Much less compatible than PC" -- there's a dangerous statement. :) By PC, I assume you mean...

Ok, so why are there viruses out now for Windows 64-bit? The user base of Windows 64-bit is way smaller than the user base of OS X. OS X is based on BSD UNIX which has an extremely strong security track record. When a system is designed from the beginning with security in mind, it will be...