Technoaesthetic advancements
Well, it took getting a whole new computer, but I’m finally running Linux! After five (glorious) afternoons/evenings of messing around with new hardware and software, I think I can safely say that I’ll never willingly go back to Windows (at least on my home computer). Gnome is just… something else. A thing of beauty. Words fail me.
Here’s a photo of my new desktop.
From left: speaker, monitor, keyboard, other speaker, THE ENTIRE COMPUTER, WHICH FITS IN A TINY BOX, mouse, USB hub. Not pictured: subwoofer, power adapter.
My fun new computer, dangermouse, is a HP e-vectra mini pc designed as a network terminal. It’s pretty low-spec; no good for 3D games or opening twenty browser tabs at once, but fine for what I need. It contains a Pentium iii 866MHz processor, 256MB RAM, an 80GB hard drive, CD-ROM and on-board Intel graphics and sound chipsets (no pci slots unfortunately, and the Intel 810E chipset limits RAM to a tiny 256MB)
Running on dangermouse is Ubuntu Linux 6.06, which is distributed with Gnome 2.14.2 as the standard desktop environment. I intend to try out KDE and XFCE eventually (since ubuntu distributions containing those environments are also available).
The total cost of the upgrade from my old, higher-spec but more temperamental Windows machine:
(includes shipping costs - I got most of the parts on TradeMe)
- Case/Motherboard: $47
- Power adapter (laptop style): $51
- CPU: $35
- RAM: I bought a 512MB chip which the machine couldn’t handle, so I used the old
256MB chip from my Windows machine; I’ll count it as free
- CD-ROM drive: $60 (HP slimline style, like a laptop drive)
- USB hub: $16.95
- Ubuntu Linux: Free (both ‘as in beer’ and ‘as in speech’)
- TOTAL: $209.95
Posted in News and such
July 24th, 2006 at 10:11 am
that is very exciting flat mascot
July 24th, 2006 at 11:34 am
You got a whole computer for around $200??? You’re a genius! I must bow in obesience to your great guru-like compy-buying skills
Is all that stuff easy for non-geeks to use?
July 24th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Cool, gnome is rather nice though it generally prefers more than 256MB ram for optimal performance. If your interested in watching video files I’d suggest you install mplayer. Also the desktop search engine called beagle is well worth it, while Rhythmbox or xmms are the best music players. If your looking for a new theme http://www.gnome-look.org/ is one of the better places to look.
July 24th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Christina - yep, second-hand computer bits are cheap, especially if you can get all the parts you want separately and put them together yourself.
Linux isn’t any harder to use than DOS or Windows would be for someone who hadn’t used them before. Maybe easier, I don’t know. The Gnome desktop environment (one of the graphical interfaces for Linux, which gives you windows/mac style graphics instead of just text) is REALLY easy to use.
Chad - yup, got those apps. I quite like Ubuntu’s Human theme but I might have a look around and see what’s out there.
July 24th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Remember of course, that FD didnt factor the cost of the monitor into that number. Also, i grabbed one of those same cases, and have managed to get it going yet - apparently they are hella tempramental with regard to exactly what ram they accept. Grr. Otherwise though, yeah, gnome is very nice to use.
July 24th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
hey, yeah, good point, how much was the monitor? It looks very flash and pretty (mmmm flatscreens)
July 24th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
$280 second-hand. I’ve had it for about a year or so. But you can get CRT monitors for free. Honestly, it’s hard to give them away.
August 15th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Does he/she have a name?
August 15th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
dangermouse.
August 18th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Your computer is called Dangermouse? [shakes head]
August 18th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
When you install Linux, you have to name the computer something.