Re: [tlug] Need purchasing advice for a linux compatible desktop

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

Botond Botyanszki wrote:

> > [LHS] Okay - then I guess the AMD I just bought will have to become 
> > a paperweight.

> I'm not saying it should be paperweight. I just don't see any sense in
> building a complete system around an obsolete CPU (though modern to some
> extent), which is worth around 3000 yen or so.

In the light of a new day, I'm basically considering one of two options
- 1) find a cheap board that will use the older (new) chip and just get
that existing box fixed and running for current applications, without
worrying about the level of technology.  The attractions for this are
that I would only have to buy the board and nothing else, saving time
and money (in the short term anyway).

> > It does look nice, so it'll be a nice paperweight

> You could use it as a hair-comb too. There are other possible uses.

Ha-ha!  While I was mainly kidding about using it as a paperweight, I
really do use a couple of Intel chips for paperweights and the AMD chip
does look nice....

> > The only thing that I really want to carry over is the capability of
> > using my old hard drives.

> In addition to the SATA interface, most have at least one PATA (the old
> wide) interface, on which you can hook up two drives. Some have two. 
> Going with SATA is nice though. My new maxtor has around 64Mb/s
> throughput compared to the old IBM deathstar model with 34Mb/sec. Not to
> mention the loud whining noise that it made. Because of this I decided to
> use it for occasional backups only and plug it in with a rack if needed.

Something I hadn't thought about is the interface for CD/DVD drives -
has that changed too?  Or are new ones the same as before?  They're the
same, aren't they?

> > Come to think of it - if I can use the video board I mentioned 

> Is it AGP or PCI-X? (I guess it's AGP or normal PCI since you said it's older)
> This pretty much decides which mobos you can pick.

I wouldn't have had any video board at all, except for my efforts at
getting a game working for a friend.  Those efforts led to purchases of
three video boards - two that didn't work in the old equipment I was
trying to get game-ready and one that did.  The 256MB DDR board has the
new type of interface (bought in ignorance of what it was - it's good to
be able to use it now!), that plugs into the brown slot on the board.
The other two (128MB & 64MB) are the old type.

> > and the memory I just bought, that would help.

> If it's DDR then it should work. The only issue is the speed, but it will
> only give less performance if it's less than 400Mhz. Another nice
> advantage is dual-channel support (with 2 identical modules).

Yes, it's DDR.  Then it would pay to get another 512MB instead of
teaming the 256MB with the 512MB....

Thanks for the info and if I don't go for an all-new box this time, then
I probably will in the near future, since I've started envisioning
getting my mitts on newer technology....

Lyle