I have a Gentoo Hardened box (quasi server) that I intended to put a 5970 in as it sits in the basement (i.e., nice and cool).  Started following some of the Linux guides last weekend and never was able to "startx" without the box locking up.  I have used Gentoo for almost 10 years but always as a headless server and don't tinker with linux much - just setup a raid array with LVM2 and get Samba running along with FTP/Web and that is it.

I have an old copy of winXP that I could use for the windows box and can't really come up with a great reason to use Linux.  MSI AB allows more adjustments than linux (i.e. voltage).  Maybe if I get it working in a new linux box I can figure how to get it working in the gentoo server.

Appreciate constructive comments -- especially from anyone running Gentoo (especially Hardened).

Thanks!

Thanks Tycho - Will probably go this route but really wanted to give *nix a shot

heh - yes - the cool factor is definitely important

How did you get pyopencl to build?