Well, things don’t always turn out to be as simple as I might first have thought.

What I’m referring to, of course, is the new Desktop system I built for myself when I got back from Egypt, spec as follows:

Coolermaster CM Stacker 830 Case (2 x 120mm Fans)
Gigabyte P35C-DS3R Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU
2 x 2GB Crucial RAM
2 x 160GB Seagate ST3160815AS Hard Drives
2 x 500GB Seagate ST3500630AS Hard Drives
2 x NEC SATA DVD+/-RW Optical Drives
nVidia Geforce 8800GTX 768MB GPU (Dual DVI-out)
2 x Belinea 22″ TFT Widescreen Monitors (one VGA only, one DVI)

Since I read that the board had on-board RAID powered by Intel chips (Intel stuff, from what I’ve heard and read is generally well-supportedunder Linux), I pretty much had my heart set on setting this machine up in the following way:

1. 2 x 160GB Drives setup RAID 0 for striping and to house the Operating Systems
   2 x 500GB Drives in a RAID 1 for storing files and keeping backups
2. Small Windows XP install just big enough for running the one application I need in Windows well (multiple Eve Online clients running at the same time)
3. Rest of the drive dedicated to Linux installs – one 64-Bit version to tryout and probably run virtualizations through, and one 32-bit version mainly for trying to troubleshooting if I couldn’t get the Eve Client running in 64-bit. Once the Eve client stablizes under Linux (to enable, for example, running multiple instances without dramatically affecting the gameplay) then I could see myself finally being able to kick Windows into touch all together.
4. GPU utilizing the binary NVidia drivers and running in Dualview Mode in both Windows and Linux, at 1680×1050 resolution.

Let’s be clear though – as things are right now, I use my Desktop for one main purpose – accessing Eve Online. Sure, whilst I’m on it I use things such as the web browser, check my emails through IMAP accounts and listen to music, but I can do all of those things and more comfortably under Linux, and have been doing so exclusively on my laptop for well over a year (my IBM T41 just runs Kubuntu 7.10). And those things are easy to do. My music is all stored on a separate file server giving me the option of NFS or SMB shares depending on what OS I’m on. My browsing and email tasks are easily handled by Open Source apps on whichever platform I’m running. The only hurdle is Eve. Or so I thought.

When I first got the machine set up, the first thing I knew I’d have to do was install XP. So I went ahead, setup the RAID partitions from the BIOS, and set about installing XP. Got it up and running in rapid time and got Eve running on it. It runs pretty well. Perhaps not as well as I might have hoped, but then it is doing a hell of a lot of work and is stable enough.

After a few days I set about trying to install Ubuntu. The LiveCD started up nicely and everything seemed to just work going through to the installation. Solid.

However, going through the installation, the first major hurdle to my hopes and dreams appeared – Ubuntu detected every single drive independently, rather than as just 2 drives. Bugger.

A little bit of investigating revealed the reason – the on-board RAID on the board was, in fact, fancy software RAID, and as such, installing Linux on to it – whilst technically possible – was going to be a royal pain in the arse. Not to mention beyond what I reckon I could feasibly deal with if it ballsed up.

So, I came up with a workaround. It looked like FakeRAID could be used under Linux to at least get shared access to the RAID 1 Array setup for sharing files / backups between the systems. So that could work. I just needed to scrap the RAID 0.
Back into BIOS then, and deleting the RAID0 array, and reinstalling XP into a small partition on one of the now visibly separate 160GB drives. Reinstall all the drivers again. Happy days, it works.
Install Linux (Ubuntu 7.10 64-Bit version) and the LiveCD installer encounters difficulties. Download the Alternate install and stick it on. We’re good. it boots up (no splash screen during boot but that seems to be a resolution problem with the monitors) and after a few seconds black screen (booting) I get the GDM login. Login, everything’s fine.

Restricted Drivers Manager pops up and lets me know about the Nvidia updates that, whilst not free, could help my hardware work properly. Since I hate freedom, I whacked them on.

At this point my memory starts to fail me, as it could have been after this step or the next step, but on reboot I have no screen output, at all. However, if I reboot and unplug one of my monitors, the other monitor does work fine.

Whether it was because the above happened, or whether I was desperately seeking cutting edge, I then downloaded Envy in order to get the very latest Nvidia drivers, and set my desktop on its way to 3D Domination. Epic fail.

Rebooting with 2 monitors plugged in resulted in ZERO output again. ALT+F2 didn’t give me a terminal. It was just no output. But the GPU Fan was audibly spinning like crazy. And would continue to do so even with minimal load. Restarting with one monitor unplugged gave me the same GPU response, except this time I could see that it was hardly doing anything. Trying to plug the extra monitor in once things were warm and working and using autodetect also failed to help. In all senses of the word (well, one), I was buggered.

Nonetheless, with just one working monitor I decided to try to press on and install Eve, using WINE rather than the officially sanctioned ‘Eve Linux Client’ which I’ve heard mixed reports about. It installed fine and seemed to work (chance to test it was limited). The constantly whirring fan was pissing me off, so I uninstalled it and rebooted with the vanilla drivers. Boot up was fine, resolution was proper, and all was good. Restricted Drivers Manager pops up, so I install it again and reboot (still, one monitor). This time on reboot I get config errors detecting the monitor / GPU types and a default resolution 0f 800×600 – I don’t know how many of you have tried looking at a 22″ TFT Widescreen in 800×600 but it is pure ugly. Poking around in the config failed to find a workaround, even when I manually set the card and driver options.  I have since rebooted back into Windows XP, which is where I’m writing this from.

So, I’m at a loss.

Looking at Hardware RAID options, getting a dedicated card right now is simply not financially viable. I’m loathe to wipe everything and experiment with another Linux 64-Bit distro as the sole OS as I already know that in its current state Eve simply won’t run too efficiently with multiple instances open (through no fault of the Wine guys, who seem to be doing a stellar job on getting things working) but jsut because of the ‘Windows only’ style limitations that seem to be in place. Besides that, my so far limtied trials with getting Dual View to work on my 8800GTX under Linux also don’t fill me with confidence – even if I got Eve running satisfactorily on one monitor with multiple instances, I don’t want to have to put up with ALT-TABBING between windows all the bloody time whilst my perfectly good second monitor sits there shaking its head miserably and looking downright glum because it’s being left out of the action.

So what I’m left with is toying with biting the bullet, reassigning the software RAID to having a RAID 0 Array in place and installing XP and XP along on that for the time being, dealing with sticking Linux on there as and when it happens / is affordable.

It pains me to do it though, as I know that barring the Eve Online / Dual Monitor problems I’ve so far encountered with the limited 64-bit trials (probably due to it being a new card and the Linux drivers lagging a bit more than anything else) I can do everything I want my desktop to do under Linux, and would be much happier running things through there (it may sound like a crock of shit, but it’s just easier to actual do things and play with stuff under Linux), but I just can’t see how it’s going to be a realistic option right now. Which sucks.

I haven’t quite decided whether I’m going to go ahead and do it yet, but the way it’s looking, I might have to. It will be a waste of resources (there’s no bloody way I’m sticking Vista 64-bit on here) but hopefully it will only be temporary, at least until I can afford to splash out on a hardware RAID card.

If anyone has any possible suggestions to correct the difficulties I’ve found with the Linux experiments so far then, of course, they’d be greatly appreciated.