AMD64 and xgl recommendations

[der.hans]

moin moin,

I'm wanting to buy a new box. I'd like to go to AMD 64 and have a good
video card with Free Software drivers.

I figure I'll go SATA for hard drives.

I don't really care about a CD rom, but might get a DVD burner.

Any recommendations on what processor(s) to get? Dual-core?

What mother board? I want to be able to put at least a couple of GB of RAM
in it, but I think that should be pretty standard by now.

If I put it together myself I'll likely by the RAM from Crucial.

Any specific heat syncs I should look at? I'd like something that doesn't
need much fan as the box will be in a somewhat dusty environment and I'd
like the box to be quiet.

Video card? Do I need to worry about what type of slots the mother board
has for video? I plan on running dual-head 20" LCDs. I'm liking
wide-screen monitors. Does that affect video card decisions?

Are there different SATAs to worry about?

Do DVD burners just work for Linux?

Anything else I should care about?

Low power would be awesome. Quiet would be good. Able to handle a somewhat
dusty environment is a must.

I don't need a bunch of power as it'll mostly just be a desktop. I don't
game, but I would like to play with xgl. I will likely play with
virtualization stuff like qemu and xen.

I haven't even thought about hardware for a few years, so I'm totally out
of touch with what's available.

Recommendations on where to shop would be good as well.

I'm fine with putting the box together, but am also fine with buying a
complete system from a Linux-friendly vendor.

I might consider buying the case from Frys, but likely no other components
as I want the box to work and Frys sucks. No need to start a thread
on this, see list archives. Just saying that I'm going to ignore any
recommendations on picking up components there.

ciao,

der.hans
-- 
#  https://www.LuftHans.com/        http://www.CiscoLearning.org/
#  Join the League of Professional System Administrators  https://LOPSA.org/
#  History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles,
#  cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names.
#  -- Leo Tolstoy