Finally - A Cure for Distro-Hopping: A Test Machine!
I’ll admit it - I’m a habitual distro-hopper. When I hear of something “new” coming out, I just have to test it. I like virtualization, but I don’t ever feel like I can get the real “essense” or “feel” of a distro in a Virtual Machine.
I am, however done mucking around with my main desktop here at home. I’ve re-setup Ubuntu Ibex, and I don’t plan on ever re-loading this machine from scratch ever again (until an Ubuntu release upgrade breaks something - crosses fingers
).
This year for Christmas I had decided to build my Mom a new computer. I’ve been ordering parts, piece by piece for about 6 months now - and finally, with this past pay-check I was able to get the last few things. Since she already knows she is getting it, and I’ve finally gotten all of the parts, I’m going to go ahead and build it and set it up (this isn’t going to be her only present, btw). If you are curious, Her new machine specs are these (Major Components):
- Intel Pentium (Dual-Core) E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz
- GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard
- EVGA 384-P3-N966-RX GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 (”Recertified” Deal from NewEgg - a steal at $60)
- G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
- Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
- Antec True Power Trio TP3-650 650W
- OCZ Vendetta 92mm Ball CPU Cooler
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
This may not be the highest-end system I could have built, but I got all of the parts as “good deals” “open box” and/or with free shipping from different vendors over the past months. In a way, it’s a present to both of us. It will be running Vista Ultimate x64, and although it’s really “Mom’s PC”, it’s also the “Downstairs PC”, so I’ll get to use it too, which means I can do some (light) gaming on it, satisfying my only Windows need.
The real upside is I get her old PC - which is one of my old PC’s and is a custom built AMD Athlon XP 3200+ with 1.5GB of RAM and a 120 GB SATA I HDD. Now, this isn’t an up-to-date monster, but I think it’ll allow me to play with distro’s to my hearts content w/o distrubing my main machine!

Written by jaysonrowe on November 11th, 2008 with no comments.
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