I've been thinking it's time to upgrade my trusty Dell Inspiron 531. Although quite happy with the seven year old system, I am thinking of just replacing the Motherboard, CPU and RAM.*
The last time I did an upgrade like this was back in the days when the original Athlon was a big deal, so I'm feeling quite out of date. A couple of hours trolling through various shopping sites hasn't helped.
What I really could use is some real world advice on what products or features don't play well with Linux, especially Mint. I'm hoping to pull all of this together without spending more than about $250. Not a gamer, not doing massive heavy duty stuff, don't overclock, probably can live for years with 8 gigs of RAM. Do have dual monitors. Mostly just run what installs with Mint, plus Windows Vista in Virtualbox once or twice a month.
For instance, is UEFI BIOS still an issue? Are there certain things that still absolutely don't work with Linux? Suggestions and warnings please!
* Haven't considered whether the Dell has some odd MB spec that nothing else will fit into.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by arashi no garou on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:15PM
I can't speak to your specific case/power supply, but I've had bad to middling results upgrading Dell systems with new motherboards in the past. More often than not, your typical 5+ year old Dell power supply is simply not up to the task of even a budget modern motherboard. When you can get a decent case/PS combo on Newegg for under $50 that will comfortably house and power your average micro-ATX motherboard, why not spend the extra few dollars on something that is guaranteed to work?
Don't get me wrong; sometimes it can be fun trying to get new parts to work with old parts, but it sounds like you want something quick and simple, not complicated and potentially more expensive (trying to find that specific motherboard that will actually work with your underpowered PS and possibly oddly shaped case, and still be fully compatible with your distro of choice). To put it another way, a generic case/PS will vastly open up your motherboard options.
(Score: 1) by xorsyst on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:13PM
I don't know for linux compatibility (though I've had no specific issues with that for ages), but many UK suppliers at least will sell you a bare-bones bundle of case, psu, motherboard, chip and RAM that is all guaranteed to work together, and all pre-built. These often work out about the same price, if not even cheaper, than buying separately.
For example: http://www.novatech.co.uk/barebonebundles/view/bb-41604a.html [novatech.co.uk]
(I'm assuming the $1==£1 exchange rate for computer equipment, which still seems to be fairly standard - partly because the £ price includes sales tax).
(Score: 3, Informative) by arashi no garou on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:53PM
Yes, you can get the same in the US (and internationally I think) via Newegg, TigerDirect, and other component sellers. I've specced and built a complete budget workstation for about $250, similar to what was asked for in the summary (non-gaming, GNU/Linux friendly). Here's more or less the equivalent to what I built using components available today on Newegg:
Case with power supply, $39.99:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147010 [newegg.com]
Motherboard with AMD HD 3000 video built in, $33.24:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135349 [newegg.com]
CPU, quad core, $104.99:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113287 [newegg.com]
RAM, 8GB, $65.99:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313086 [newegg.com]
Total is $244.21 before shipping, just under his budget. Once again I can't speak to the GNU/Linux compatibility of that specific board, but my personal experience with 760G boards in that OS is pretty good. For a good basic workstation, it's hard to go wrong.
I do get the feeling that the OP is trying to save money by repurposing his original parts as much as possible, but honestly when you can get a case and power supply that are guaranteed to work with a new standard motherboard for $40, it's been my experience that it is money well spent. That said, here's a solid Dell workstation that sounds like it would be a significant upgrade, for just a few dollars over his budget, and already has a dual monitor graphics card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA68F21X0212 [newegg.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 23 2014, @08:44PM
Adding to that, the key item you mention is an AMD video.
Research the models carefully, but by and large, AMD is more user friendly than Nvidia in the Linux world.
Even the community drivers for linux for older chipsets are very very good these days.
Almost nothing on the Mothorboard will be a problem for Linux.
Your Video card is the most likely problem area. Worst case is you end up tainting your system with a binary blob, or having no support at all. But that is pretty rare these days as long as the chipset wasn't baked yesterday.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday October 23 2014, @08:20PM
They are junk, got a bunch of 5 year old Dells at the shop right now, your average C2D Optiplexes and the like and the PSUs? fucking 250w max if you are lucky! Man before you use a Smell PSU you'd be better off with one of the $15 Newegg specials, the Rosewill 380w run quite well as do the Diablotek 400w and I've had pretty good luck with the Logisys 480w. The key with the cheapo PSUs? ALWAYS, and I mean "always don't your ass even attempt that shit" leave a good 40w-60w of headroom. that means if you know your system will max out at 300w? Then use a 380w. if its gonna max out at 350w-400w? Use a 450w-500w. as long as you don't put a ton of load on the cheapos they'l work fine for years and years without a bit of hassle, you just have to know their limitations.
As for what works with Linux? I can tell ya what don't, as in the parts most likely to fail the Hairyfeet Challenge. they are, in no particular order, Sigmatel Audio, Via Audio, the Realtek Audio that is NOT AC97? Seriously hit or miss. as far as video pretty much all of them "work" if by "work" you mean "can draw a picture on a screen" but if you want hardware acceleration? yeah its all seriously hit or miss. If you said what you wanted the system to do finding parts would be a hell of a lot easier but since this board uses the older 760g chipset I'd say its probably a pretty safe bet [tigerdirect.com] and at $159 it lets you lose the Smell PSU and case, two major positives in my book as Dell cases tend to suck balls when it comes to working room and airflow.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: -1) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:19PM
Just go with a Haswell CPU and you get the GPU for free. Intel is well supported on Linux currently. RAM is RAM. Just make sure is agrees with your motherboard specs.
As for brands I like Gigabyte and Asus.
Specific recommendations?
CPU: Intel Core i7-4771
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116941 [newegg.com]
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD3H
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128710 [newegg.com]
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445 [newegg.com]
Total Price: $539.97
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:33PM
He doesn't want to spend more than $250 on the upgrades so you suggest a CPU for $315?
I guess we don't RTFS here either.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:38PM
Maybe they should save a little more and buy something that will not suck and last a good long while?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:44PM
Intel CPUs have VPro/VT built in which includes a vnc server that reads off the gpu framebuffer.
Even if you shut it down it can always be remotely reactivated. There is no way around this.
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Saturday October 25 2014, @03:58PM
Only certain Intel CPUs, mainly the ones used in pro workstations, have VPro, and the motherboard must support it too, and most retail channel boards don't. Know what you're talking about before spreading FUD.
(Score: 0) by Darren on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:24PM
I would advise downloading virtualbox [virtualbox.org], then using a turnkey image [dotsrc.org]. This way you can place in your new components, then bring up an OS and test what happens rapidly moving from version to version or flavor to flavor until you find one that's functional. At that point format the machine and install that flavor/version of linux.
It's been my experience that trying to find information about how a flavor/version will react with a particular hardware setup is patchy and has conflicting results.
Web Designer - darrencaldwellwebdesign.ca
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:30PM
How would virtualization demonstrate a guest OS's performance on bare metal?
Bad advice is bad.
(Score: 3, Informative) by arashi no garou on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:33PM
Really? I thought Virtualbox abstracts a lot of the hardware, so that the OS image only sees "virtualbox hardware" making this an exercise in futility. I've even seen this first hand; I had a system that refused to boot FreeBSD (kernel panics during boot no matter what settings I changed in the BIOS and in the OS boot options) but booted and ran perfectly under Virtualbox on the same machine.
(Score: 1) by Darren on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:34PM
Oh, nevermind then, is there a way I can delete my post?
Web Designer - darrencaldwellwebdesign.ca
(Score: 2, Interesting) by JNCF on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:09PM
Nope. Say something stupid on Soylent and it stays here until entropy :P
I kind of like it that way. Keeps us humble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:33AM
You learned something.
You weren't a dick in your initial post, and you've gracefully accepted that you were wrong.
I see no need to delete, you've conducted yourself in a manner befitting an adult. It shows who you really are, behind the screen.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday October 24 2014, @04:27AM
You're stuck with it, though you've gracefully admitted you were in error, so the only harm in it being left around is that it might get confused for good advice if someone doesn't follow the comment chain. Also, sorry for denting your karma, but I did downmod it as "Overrated" to better distinguish it from valid advice.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:47PM
sorry, but running hardware in virtualbox is NOT any test at all. you end up using virtual network, disk and other drivers and its not a true pass-thru test.
booting an install disk and running from the dvdrom, that is a fair test. but virtual machines prove nothing.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Informative) by SuperCharlie on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:29PM
http://community.linuxmint.com/hardware [linuxmint.com]
Im a Mint user too.. the forums there are pretty great for this kinda stuff..
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewforum.php?f=49 [linuxmint.com]
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:45PM
just last week I built a fanless i3 system for movie/media use. the new i3 haswells can be as low as 35w! they run fast as crazy, too!
problem is: usb on the new intel chipsets is borked. on both win7 AND linux, my favorite usb/audio dongle no longer works. I used an spdif dongle that supports UAC2 audio and 24/192k rates. its the m2tech hiface2 and for all my machines BUT THIS ONE, it works super great. however, on win and linux, it won't fully init and stutters if it works at all. on mint and ubuntu, I'm seeing lots of usb audio problems with devices not fully seen (lsusb shows them but pulse won't see them unless I plug and replug and restart pulse). mint is bad and ubuntu is a bit better (hate that, btw) but none are working as well as things used to, on my ancient atom fanless box with NV ion gfx onboard.
I think the previous generation also had some usb trouble (ivybridge or sandybridge, I forget). intel has fucked up quite a few things the last few yrs. even their gig-e chip that they now use has wake-on-lan reboot issues with many mobos.
if I didn't need that 35w i3 chip, I would have gone to a much older intel system. I still prefer intel over amd for the more stable chipset support (odd, huh? maybe its time to rethink amd, not sure).
fwiw, the case I picked up is kind of nice, small and heatpipe based so its fanless. with my i3 35w chip on it, I can put my hand on the chip heatpipe and not even realize the chip is on, it runs THAT cool. there are i7's that are 45w or 55w and I bet the case would support those, easily, too. also, I opted for a 19v onboard atx psu so that I had no wires inside the case, plus the ssd was msata and that also was wire-free direct to the mobo. intel gfx still pretty much suck for movie watching; I see stutters every 1-second for some reason, where even my ancient ion nvidia chip on a lowly atom would not do this! so I have mixed feelings about intel hd gfx. I wanted onboard gfx and low power and low heat, but NV chips are still far superior to intel onboard gfx.
case I used: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00958DB9U [amazon.com]
cpu I used: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EUVEFEC [amazon.com]
mobo I used: http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-SO-DIMM-DualBIOS-Motherboard-GA-Q87TN/dp/B00FU7U9EU [amazon.com]
it builds the latest kernel in about 6 minutes with a samsung 840evo drive and 4gb of ram (make -j5).
secure boot does not pose a problem and linux installed and booted just fine.
I do have mixed feelings about it, but its all bought and built and I have to live with it, now. for amazon prime streamed video, its perfect, so its hard to understand why showing movies from my nas has a jerky every-1-second-catchup kind of effect. again, same nas used on my old atom box didn't have that issue. something is strange about the new chipsets, but I can't quite figure it out.
if you don't need mini-itx, you have a lot more options, but I wanted small, fanless and onboard video.
HTH some.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Friday October 24 2014, @03:05AM
If the USB audio has been a problem specifically in the past few months, you might want to try running either Slackware, Void Linux, or an older (pre-systemd) version of Mint/Ubuntu. That's unfortunately from experience: for some reason, a lot of my Thinkpad's hardware doesn't work right (if at all) under systemd, including USB.
(Score: 1) by crAckZ on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:10PM
I use a gigabyte motherboard, amd quad core unlocked (3.8 Ghz), 12 GB corsair memory, SSD drive and 1 TB harddrive and runs mint great. i know it is out of your price range but these components work very well. I don't know if this helps you at all.
(Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:32PM
I have a similar setup, and running Mint13 (KDE4 desktop) it works very well. My Gigabyte motherboard had integrated Radeon graphics and Mint struggled with HD video. I bought an Nvidia card (GT610) and this solved the problem nicely. Obviously that would add cost to your system, and I have to believe though that a new motherboard with integrated graphics would be up to the task. I got my motherboard in 2010.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @04:45PM
As a person who is subscribed to the cult of the Model M, I really like gigabyte motherboards because they're one of the few trustworthy brands with a PS2 port.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @05:16PM
> SSD drive
I've always wanted an SSD drive. Maybe I'll walk to the ATM machine and enter my PIN number so I can withdraw the cash to buy one.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:26PM
I usually go to NewEgg and search the comments. So for example, if I'm trying to live within this budget (and change out the power supply), I might look at this $140 combo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1808679 [newegg.com]
Then open up the page for the motherboard, then the comments, then search for (linux, debian, ubuntu, red hat, etc.). In the comments here, one person discovered that you can't make this board run headless under Ubuntu -- it won't boot without a monitor attached. After reading that, I'd move on to something else. I'd actually just start with the motherboard area. Anyway, whenever I buy something and find it works with linux, I make sure I go back to the comment section and post that (and don't just say "ubuntu" -- say "linux" in there to make the searching easier).
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 23 2014, @04:12PM
My preferred method of PC purchasing is parts from Newegg. You can get an awesome machine for $400 to $600 dollars, depending on how awesome you want it. That's not terribly expensive and should last you a good long time. I would recommend E-bay, in the event that you can't or don't want to afford a $400 to $600 dollar computer. It's hit or miss with E-bay and you have no idea how bad the computer was treated before you got it, but it's definitely cheaper.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:32PM
Look on newegg or ebay for a workstation. Workstations are usually built to last.
Businesses fail everyday, and they sell off office gear cheap. Used or refurb start around $200 and go to $500.
Don't go replacing a Mobo, Ram and CPU unless you like building your own System, especially if you're trying to keep using the same case. Be prepared to need a new power supply, fans, etc.
I grew out of that about 8 years ago.
I picked up an HP elite 8300 SFF i7 3.4Ghz with 8G Ram for around $375 about a year ago.
I've since expanded the Ram to 32G and use it as a VMware lab now, but I ran Mint 14 or 15 on it for a few months and everything was recognized.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Thursday October 23 2014, @04:01PM
I recently built a Haswell box to run Linux - UEFI wasn't an issue at all. I don't remember having to do anything. You can enable/disable it in the BIOS, but whatever the default was worked. This was with a Gigabyte motherboard. I actually built a Windows box at the same time, and didn't have any issues installing Win8 Pro either. I've installed Linux on everything from a PIII to a Haswell, and the processor doesn't seem to matter to Linux. What you'll need as far as CPU depends on what you're doing with the box, and ditto with the memory. (I personally use G-Skill memory. The best brand tends to change, but G-Skill has been stable for a while. I switched to it when other brands started giving me bad sticks. Hint: Always do a full memory test before installing if you have new memory, so you know it's a problem. One time, though, I had a motherboard with a bad memory slot, and it was hard to diagnose.)
I've used Linux for software development, and the #1 thing I run into is the graphics support. The only reliable graphics I've been able to get working is the onboard Intel video that comes with the motherboard. I have never been able to get any graphics card to work reliably with Linux. I don't know what the secret is, but I have never had any luck using the default drivers or with installing drivers. Once, I had it working, but every time I updated Linux the drivers got trashed and I had to reboot, upgrade them, reboot again, and see if it would work. After an upgrade of the operating system, this fragile mess didn't work. This is a nightmare time sink. Getting a graphics card to work is beyond my ability, and I'm not sure I want to learn.
Other than graphics, Linux is pretty hardware tolerant these days and takes whatever you can throw at it. I don't have that much advice, really. Linux's problems today aren't usually hardware related.
Your computer is only as good as its power supply. There's nothing between your expensive mobo and CPU and the power supply if the ps blows up. Get a really high quality one like Thermaltake. Don't use the el cheapo one that comes with a casr. Used to be hard to get a casr without a ps, but now Thermaltake has them. To me, the cheapest case is the best one, and Thermaltake has some nice cheap cases. I'd rather spend money on parts, not the case, because it's just a metal box.
You might want to see how old your disk drives are. If they're 7 years old, I would recommend getting a replacement ready, except a 7-year-old drive these days is probably better quality and will last longer than a new one. Disk quality is really awful now that only Seagate and WD are left supplying consumers with drives. I wish there was a better quality disk drive manufacturer.
Your $250 budget is going to be tight for a quality mobo, quality memory, and a decent CPU. A Haswell i5 is pushing $250 by itself. You've already got decade-old hardware, so you don't want to build last year's computer.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 1) by tadas on Thursday October 23 2014, @04:34PM
You've already got decade-old hardware, so you don't want to build last year's computer.
Actually, he *does* want "last year's computer", and the guy above who suggested buying a used/refurb workstation has the right idea. Compared to the hardware he's currently running, "last year's computer" is going to run like a greased ape, and he's not going to be running intensive apps on it. A 2013-vintage workstation, with, perhaps, the ability to expand RAM to 16 Gb, would serve him well, last until the early '20s and come in at his $250 price point. I'd much rather have a quality last-year's workstation than a cheap component "current" system.
Posted from my "new" computer, now approaching its 5th birthday.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday October 23 2014, @08:57PM
Exactly so.
Virtually any Linux distro will turn last year's hardware into something that will beat the pants off this year's hardware with this year's Windows.
As for that aging 531:
Keep it intact, throw in a gigabit nic and run it as a Linux firewall/router/mailserver/fileserver or backup storage.
Its worth more doing that job than it will save you on re-use of the parts.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:39AM
I had a new machine built for me a couple of years ago. (Asus P8-Z68-V/Gen 3 mainboard, i7 2600K CPU.)
Two of my three PCI-E slots have failed within the three year manufacturer's warranty. I'm about to box the thing up and send it off for Asus to look at it - contrary to the average user experience on the internet, the Asus email support was quick to respond (considering I sent it over a weekend).
I'm hoping they'll fix the slots (I suspect, for no good reason, bad solder) but I'm one of those people who buys something and it's doomed from the moment I get it. Bought my car second hand from a family member, the cam belt went because the previous mechanics had ballsed up the install, they'd replaced one of the headlights with a fog lamp, and they hadn't overhauled the clutch correctly. Bought a Samsung LCD TV, got it home, but on the way my radiator hose burst. A friend helped me get the rest of the way home, with the TV, and the TV wouldn't stay on one channel, kept flicking through all the channels and inputs.
If it wasn't so funny it'd be frustrating.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 23 2014, @06:28PM
Why buy a Haswell i5 for $250 when you can have a top of the line AMD APU for 1/2 the price? In general a Haswell i5 or even the top of the line AMD APU is overkill for an average user. A decent Quad-Core APU or CPU with the best RAM it will support would get him a lot further. Assuming he never wants to game, a Quad-Core CPU and a cheapo $20 GPU or one he has on hand would be best.
On a side note:
I didn't notice much speed difference going from a AMD Athlon II X4 630 Propus Quad-Core 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Processor ADX630WFGIBOX to a AMD FX-6300 Vishera 6-Core 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Desktop Processor FD6300WMHKBOX, going from 8GB of G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR to 16GB of the same RAM, or going from a SAPPHIRE Ultimate Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card (100326UL) to a MSI R9 270 GAMING 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card. My Current and only bottle-neck at this point is my Standard 7200 RPM HDD. A 120GB SSD to boot the OS would have been a much better investment. Or spent that $200+ on an even larger SSD.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @04:45PM
Check out some used eBay Shuttle PC's. I bought a few that were going to be used for a high tech security system but were not needed, and got them really cheap. I noticed my Doctors office also uses them. They are small form factor motherboards and cases, but use common internal components. They also run very cool and quiet due to use of a water cooled ICE system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @06:47PM
Shuttles are cheap... and they are built this way.
They're also cute, but very limited.
Make sure you won't be adding anything in the next 5 years that they can't handle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:48AM
Pffft. Obviously you don't know jack about them. The gaming Shuttles are top of the line but cost thousands of dollars. Never had a failure in 10+ years. The only reason I replaced my first SB51G was because it had a single core processor, but still use it out in the garage with an HDTV card and use it to watch TV or for internet use there. You can overclock the crap out of them and the cooling system still easily handles it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @01:53PM
You mean those little toaster shaped PCs with 1/2 PCIe slots and at most a 350W power supply?
Where the case is held on with 1-3 screws and most don't allow for a CD/DVD drive?
Gaming Shuttles? That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Their entire product line is novelty at best. You're a dumb-ass for buying one. Couldn't afford a Mac?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @04:23PM
Not the toaster ones, it's the cube ones. They have full size slots, accept double wide video cards, regular CD/DVD drives, room for 2 hard drives, and there is a 500 watt power supply available. You're the dumb ass here, they'll run circles around your Acer Walmart special POS. Do your research before you talk out your arse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @05:33PM
Except maybe you should learn to read first, the OP doesn't give a damn about gaming. Too bad, so sad, your sales pitch is worthless...
And if he did, 500W is enough for gaming 5 years ago, not today. Unless you like running a shitty 210 GeF card.
And unlike you, I don't shop at Walmart or with food stamps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @07:34PM
Go troll somewhere else idiot. Shuttle PC's work fine for me, Linux works on it, they're reliable, everything I've plugged into it works, and can be found at a good price if you look around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @07:51PM
500W PSU is good for 2005, these days it's 750W and higher.
Shuttle is shit, but keep thinking otherwise about your lunchbox PC if it helps you sleep at night.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 25 2014, @12:37AM
You recommend 750 Watts huh? Bwhahahaha, ROFLMAO! The OP isn't looking for a Cray supercomputer. Quit smoking your crack and stop trolling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 25 2014, @10:25AM
I already made that point, the OP doesn't give a Rat's Ass about gaming.
Congrats on paraphrasing my earlier post, A+ for originality.
My other point still stands although it's related to the poster above me.
(Hint), that's how threads work dumb dumb.
Shuttle is still shit, for gaming especially.
Good job with reading comprehension too, I now understand the need for more HB-1 talent in the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 25 2014, @05:16PM
Children please! This is not daycare, you don't have to keep screaming at each other.
Shuttle makes good and bad hardware, like pretty much any second tier manufacturer. 750W power supplies are mostly for gaming, yes you can build a modern workstation for getting work done with a 400W power supply with power to spare.
You're both right, and both wrong, on so many levels. Now kiss and make up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @05:26PM
1. Replace your old and crappy power supply with a new, PFC, high efficiency power supply. That will most likely save you the cost of the upgrade in power bills alone.
2. RAM costs are sky-high - you can't have a decent $250 computer because it will be gimped by inadequate memory.
3. You should replace/add a new HD as a 7-year-old one is most likely running on magic
4. New motherboards don't have IDE connectors so your optical drives will not work
So you are not looking at replacing "just" 3 components. You have to replace most of them, maybe except the case.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday October 23 2014, @07:55PM
Along these lines: Look at your price of electricity before you look at efficiency. I got a 80 Plus Platinum supply only to find out that I would break even after 4 years of 100% utilization. The thing is only on and awake for 9-10 hours a day mostly at idle so my break even point is more like 30 years out unless electricity prices jump. Almost any supply will run 80% efficient so having an additional 15% efficiency may not be worth the price differential.
In fairness it was I who didn't do the right math before buying. I chose to pay extra for a modular supply. Feature creep got me and it is the only regret in my build. I over paid for what I needed and wanted. Maybe a "learn from my fail" is due.
Since on of Appalbarry's prime motives is cost I wouldn't worry about the PS too much. One that comes with a case should be fine if it has enough watts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @07:43PM
Tiger Direct has great deals on refurbished systems:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=2628&cm_re=Desktops-_-Spot%2005-_-Refurbished [tigerdirect.com]
I have had good luck/no problems with the systems I have purchased there running Mint.
(Score: 2) by kbahey on Thursday October 23 2014, @08:58PM
UEFI is not an issue anymore, at least if you are using Ubuntu.
I had to replace a PC that is running Linux exclusively, with a new one.
The new one had UEFI and Windows 8. For this PC, I don't need Windows at all, so I just inserted the Ubuntu Server 12.04.4 LTS DVD and did a normal install from it, changed the UEFI to boot from the DVD, and all went smoothly. Nothing special at all.
The only difference from old BIOS PCs is that there is a partition that is mounted at /boot/efi and contains a directory named EFI with a directory named ubuntu under that.
So, nothing much if you have Linux on its own.
I did not have to turn anything off in the BIOS. I just told UEFI that I want to boot from DVD (or was that: "boot first from DVD, then hard disk", can't remember), and things just worked as expected.
What is happening is that a) Ubuntu is one of the recognized vendors whose secure boot keys are accepted and b) it stores the keys in /boot/efi.
The stuff in boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu is as follows:
# ls -l /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/
total 2104
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 115 Apr 9 17:47 grub.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 793464 Apr 9 17:47 grubx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1355736 Apr 9 17:47 shimx64.efi
And ...
# file /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/*
/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grub.cfg: ASCII text
/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi: PE32+ executable (EFI application) x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/shimx64.efi: PE32+ executable (EFI application) x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
Note the "for MS Windows" part!
And ...
# cat /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grub.cfg
search.fs_uuid 82cef56a-blahblah root
set prefix=($root)/boot/grub
configfile $prefix/grub.cfg
So, it seems to me that this stuff will remain static across kernel upgrades, and that is how they keep secureboot and UEFI happy, while keeping the kernel customizable to all geeky whims.
Mind you, I have not tried a PC/Laptop with dual Windows/Linux boot, but it seems that secureboot and UEFI are OK if you use Ubuntu (and a few other distros).
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Thursday October 23 2014, @09:15PM
Dell has a nasty habit of using a non-standard pinout on it's "ATX" power supplies. It will readily connect to a standard motherboard but it will fry as soon as you turn it on. It's not worth it when a better new supply can be had along with a nice case for less than the cost of the board.
At some point, they stopped doing that, but I have no idea when. Naturally, Dell downplays the issue.
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Friday October 24 2014, @01:30PM
That stopped like 15+ years ago... You are more likely to have failing capacitors than this problem.
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Saturday October 25 2014, @05:21PM
While you are correct, Dell continues to use odd pinouts for the front panel controls/connectors to this day. I have a recent Dell Vostro workstation that has a special system board housing the power button and LEDs, front USB, and front audio ports. They don't publish their specs for this part, and if you do manage to reverse-engineer it well enough to get a standard case's front panel to properly turn on the board, light up, and connect the USB ports, the Dell motherboard's BIOS will still complain about a non-standard connection and halt boot until you manually advance it with the F1 key. So basically, if you transplant a Dell motherboard into a generic case, you won't be able to do WoL or otherwise have it start up on its own.
The reverse is true by virtue of the same proprietary connector; if you put a new motherboard in most Dell workstation cases, you won't be able to get the front panel to work 100% with the new board.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @10:18PM
Try a chromebox. They run linux natively so it is easy to dump chrome and install your favorite linux distro.
$170 at newegg. [newegg.com]
You'll want to add RAM and and you'll probably need a displayport-to-hdmi adaptor for the second monitor (double-check the details on those I have no experience with them). Also a larger SSD. Here's some details about upgrading the asus:
http://www.willispickering.com/content/upgrade-asus-chromebox-add-more-memory-and-ssd-and-ubuntu [willispickering.com]
FWIW, these are pretty popular with the xbmc/kodi crowd. That's how I found out about them.
(Score: 2) by jackb_guppy on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:33PM
Goto Ebay. get a used older machine with power to spare...
example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T5500-DUAL-QUAD-XEON-E5520-2-26GHz-8-CORES-6GB-1TB-DVD-NVS-290-/141361715806 [ebay.com]
Move your OS across or copy to new SSD for more speed. And be done.
I like building my own machine. I am a scrounge. I have parts and systems going back to early 90's: 486sx20/12MB/273MB/dual ISA 10baseT I am put together systems for the need at the time. No need to pay new prices, but if you want: http://slickdeals.net/ [slickdeals.net] There are nice deals there:
i7: http://slickdeals.net/f/7280332-intel-core-i7-4790k-283-w-fs-263-w-bofa-10-cb-tigerdirect [slickdeals.net]
SSD: http://slickdeals.net/f/7283386-samsung-840-pro-256-gb-sata-6gb-s-ssd-amazon-for-135-fs [slickdeals.net]
About what works and what does: It is crap shoot, but I fine older machines are better at working than newer. Example: I was playing with a newer Lenovo i7/16GB/180GB SSD (intel) last night. Loaded Ubuntu 14.04 LTS worked out of box, but once the first update was complete, it had issues with the SSD. Cleared up after a couple more reboots and patches. Damn thing booted quick and ran quick, but in the end it was play toy to me. My normal machine is 530, sister to your 531.
I am serious, pack and send it. I have place for that in my house as is.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:47PM
I have yet to find a motherboard or CPU that straight up doesn't work with Linux, all the way from a Pentium 166 (though Ubuntu won't boot on those) to my FX 8350. Basically anything made in the last 14 years should run mint (provided that it meets the minimum hardware requirements, which most of that stuff does). What you should really care about is which GPUs are compatible, since driver compatibility can be a major sticking point for Linux.
As for UEFI, just enable CSM boot on whatever motherboard you get and you can expect not to experience any problems. I'm fairly sure that if you REALLY want a 3+ TB hard drive, then Mint 17 should work perfectly fine with a UEFI firmware.
Source:
I have run either Ubuntu, Debian, or Mint on the following systems (I can't give some info because I may not have these systems anymore):
FX 8350 with Sabertooth 990fx motherboard and Radeon HD 7870 (keep in mind that RAM and HDD shouldn't matter that much as long as it's DDR3)
A10 5700 with some crappy motherboard (it's tiny, but I can just feel the cheapness radiating off of it), and integrated AMD graphics (keep in mind that this GPU doesn't always play nice with Mint and the official AMD drivers due to a memory leak that you have to add commands to grub to fix).
Dual Katmai Pentium III on a really nice Gigabyte board for the time. Has a Rage12 graphics card.
Some godawful IBM Thinkcentre with a Pentium D
A laptop with an A6-5200. Mint runs well but the UI (MATE) is choppy for some reason.
A K6-II @ 400 MHz with some Compaq motherboard. It worked with debian only.
Some others that I've probably forgotten.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by jackb_guppy on Friday October 24 2014, @12:04AM
I post at least through a K6-2 400. Was wife's machine with an early ATI card with a TV tuner built-in. Now the firewall! 10GB drives run for years and years.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Friday October 24 2014, @05:18AM
Nice. I wish I could run *buntu or mint on my K6-II, but it evidently lacks cmpxchg. Also, isn't it nice to browse a site that isn't so laden with javascript that it makes you want to throw your computer into a wall?
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by jackb_guppy on Sunday October 26 2014, @01:32AM
I understand the cmpxchg issue. Was trying to find a version to run on I-Opener C6/200MHz /128M /18G machine with only 1 USB1 port - for a USB to 10BaseT interface. I found PUPPY 4.3.1 works well, or build a GENTOO - but all the major browsers are also cmov support and do not work on lite windows version, seam to want gnome or kde.
It gets back to "systemd issue" - tying one pack to another. In case, it is tying code to hardware. Linux, run on everything. Intel, ARM, PowerPC, ... but not pre-P4!
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Sunday October 26 2014, @02:56AM
Linux still runs (well is another matter) on my dual Pentium III box. I'd recommend one of the BSDs for an older machine, but NetBSD crashes on my k6... I wonder if FreeBSD would work.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Saturday October 25 2014, @05:20PM
Thanks everyone - pretty much every question answered, and yeah , I completely forgot about the Power Supply issue.
Years ago I ordered some systems form the computer store at the University where I was working. They failed spectacularly.
By "spectacular" I mean "sparks were blasting out of the back of the power supply just before the loud noise that preceded the smoke."
Since then I do go the extra few bucks for a good PS......
The Workstation suggestion was one I hadn't considered, will look at that too.