Hey, I'm a newbie to linux and I'm wanting to build a computer and stick red hat 9 on it as my main os. My question is: When buying hardware, do I have to make sure that there are linux drivers for the certain product that I want? I know that you can program your own, but I don't know how. Sorry if this question seems stupid. I just don't want to buy a bunch of stuff just to find out that it doesn't work.

The CPU doesn't matter. For AMD, the nForce 2 chipset is the best for performance, and nvidia provides drivers. VIA chipsets are better supported by free code (as in open source, nvidia's drivers are free to download). For an Intel CPU, you should probably get the latest Intel chipset. Athlon 64s have been supported in Linux since before they existed. I'm not sure about RH 9, but Mandrake and SuSE both support AMD's 64 bit CPUs (in 64 bit mode), as far as I know. Almost all onboard sound chips will be supported, as will onboard graphics. If you want a higher-end nvidia graphics card or nForce 2 onboard graphics, make sure to download nvidia's drivers. Performance will be much better. ATI provides Linux drivers, but support isn't nearly as good as with nvidia. Some winmodems work, but if you want to be sure a modem will work, get an external. 3Com and Intel network cards are very well supported and strong performers, but most other NICs are supported and work just fine.

"When buying hardware, do I have to make sure that there are linux drivers for the certain product that I want?" Yes. An easy way is to check this list. Many, many (common) components are supported and x86 chips are no problem, so you should not even have to think about 85% of your system. A quick check of the manufacturer's website is usually all that is necessary beyond this. If they have Linux drivers, check which kernels they support. Try Google with something like "[make/model of hardware] problems Linux" to see what are the most common difficulties with a certain piece of hardware. "I know that you can program your own, but I don't know how." That's OK, there are a few people who do not write their own drivers and Linus kindly lets them use Linux too.

Thanks a bunch Jake and anonproxy. I've spent a lot of time trying to this figure out and you've helped tremendously. I'm really interested in switching from windows to linux and I can't wait to try it out.