On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, Jonathan Wilson wrote:
At 02:42 PM 2/16/2001 -0800, you wrote:
Wow,
I would go with a P3, Duron or ThunderBird. 256MB RAM as RAM is not too expensive (well is to me, but at $50 for 128 not too bad). Duron's and Thunderbird's have DDR (double data rate) memory.
If I'm not mistaken, there aren't any K7 mainboards out yet, that take DDR-
They are out (the ASUS 760 is DDR) although they are so new you may want to let them mature. I see the Micron DDR 64MB on pricewatch for $43...Although again best to wait. I need to clarify though, I should have stated DDR bus speed of 200MHz.
ViewSonic PS790 are nice, you are going to get a lot of recomendations
I've had good experience with View Sonics ...again, look at SuSE's supported hardware list
here. Try to get one with 0.25 dpi or less as it will be more pleasing to the eye.
Sb Live! This is now the de-facto standard.
:-)
DVDR-Not sure...
R/W CD-Drive. The IDE ones are OK, but you may have to set it up with ide-scsi, not sure if SuSE 7.1 will do that for him. If thats too much, you can get a cheap SCSI card and get a SCSI CDRW.
Do not get one of those nameless-barnd ones. Make sure it's made by a major company so you can pin it down to an exact model number. SCSI is sure better but it's really not needed for a mid-grade system. IDE 10x is fine.
My main concern here is that he may need to tinker to get ide-scsi going, not that hard really, but if you are after plug and play...Does SuSe 7.1 detect IDE scsi and setup the required parameter for you? If it does, or getting ide-scsi going is no big deal then IDE will be fine :-)/
Nvidia Geforce 2 MX or greater. 16MB should suffice I would imagine, unless he wants 32MB.
Yep...or a Radeon with 64 MB for gaming...
Motherboard will be dependant upon the Processor type. Duron/Thunderbird m/boards tended to be more expensive,
That is certainly not true. Intel Mobo's are about the only ones I would classify as expensive. All good Mainboards are ~$120 - ~$200. Do not get a cheap one (less then $100) there's too many out there that are not good quality. I have had very bad trouble with Soyo's from Tiger Direct, and the FIC boards, though they are recommended by AMD, will not use all 6 PCI slots ( I found that one out the hard way).
When I was comparing getting a Duron, or a Celeron I noticed that the Thunderbird boards were more expensive than a comparable board that would take a Celeron, it was in the region of $20 difference, but performance was certainly great between the two. Thats my reasoning there.
but you save a lot on the CPU price. Asus tend to make very good medium to high end boards.
Yes, as does the little-known MSI
Low end boards are not good, but they tend to come with sound and video which you do not want anyway.
Oh yeah, avoid on-board video and sound like the plague....
Tekram are not too bad either, I am sure everyone here as their favourite. Bus speed of 100MHz on a Thunderbird board gives a speed of around 200MHz as information goes both ways (DDR).
Everyone seems to say Epson, not sure on the model :-(.
I use an HP 812C, no problems, apart from the difficulty in getting ink (ack).
Get an external Modem, way easier to setup. I have used the Creative Labs Modem Blaster external with no problems (do not get the USB one, too slow). It was priced at around $55.
Dependant on motherboard, most likely to be Pc133...Get as much as you can afford (and make me jealous hehe).
thinkgeek.com has Linux keyboards as does penguincomputing.com (under accessories). That would be a nice touch (all they really did was replace the windows keys with penguins).
Do not get the FA311 from Netgear as its so new and I am not sure on quality. One broke on me a day ago after 3 months of near continious operation, it was the external device facing the Internet. Now replaced with an Edimax, whcih uses the rtl8139 chipset. How much are you willing to spend? Did you notice switches are the same price as hubs nowadays? Just got an 8 port swicth for $62.01 inclucsive of tax and delivery.
I have had continual good expirience with even the cheapest (~$20) linksys "tulip" cards (such as the LNE100-TX) and 3coms are high quality... really, a linksys should do ...they're about the cheapest too
Just avoid the FA311 as it will need to be setup with a new module (natsemi). Tulip based cards are good (gennerally) , I'd go with your recomendations on the Linksys as its been through more tests. Of the tulip chipset there about 170 different variations of it, therefore someone elses postive experience is worth a great deal! The FA311 is so new its hard to tell, I had one bad experience, but it could just have been a bad card...
---------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wilson System Administrator
Cedar Creek Software http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com
Central Texas IT http://www.centraltexasit.com
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