Building a Pc
 

Hi. Im 15 years old and I've wanted to switch to Linux for a long time. I want to build my own PC that will run Linux fine. I dont need nothing extremely fancy, because I may not be able to get a summer job and Im on a tight budget ;p So i was wondering if anyone had suggestions on what componets I should buy. I mainly want to use it for programming, but I've heard that its much better than Windows, so i would really like to switch.

Thanks,

Jw

your cheapest option is probably something second hand off ebay. i dont know exactly what you want but anything 400Mhz, with 128Mb RAM or better should be good enough for a general desktop machine.

if you want to build a machine yourself(not a cheap thing to do) then just check your components are supported before you buy them.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/

dont know how upto date it is though

Yeah ebay is good option but I hate the shipping costs. I mean you can get a perfect pc to mess around with for like $80 but then you get hammered on the shipping.

Check in peoples dumpsters for old pcs.

OK... I dont really want anything second hand. I want a good machine. I dont want to buy a prebuilt PC, I want to choose the componets. I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestion for componets. As price limit on building one, max is $500. I thought about doing this once before, and a good machine that would run Linux came up to $420. I use to chat with the guys at lameindustries.org but the URL doesnt work anymore. Thats where they gave me the specs for the machine, but I cant remember the parts. I went on newegg.com and searched for them, and they alll were compatible, or should have been.

NewEgg is an ideal hardware site. So is Pricewatch. Nvidia's cards are always recognized, regardless of distro. There are plenty of threads that will give you good suggestions on NIC's. You could also do Walmart's $200 package. It's entirely up to you, but I wouldn't discount the possibility of cheap used wares. One man's burden is another man's bargain.

Check around with local computer dealerships, too. They might have a basic mobo/cpu/case package that you can add on to ... I built a P4-2GHz system for my old man pretty recently and after you factor in the keyboard/mouse/monitor it was just over $500.

local computer dealerships are the way to go. I dont know about the US, but in Australia you could get a decent computer for $1000AU (approx. $650us dollars)

Here is one I just found for $1000AU:

Pentium 4 2.4ghz
Gigabyte 8SIML-H 533FBS motherboard
256mb PC2100 DDR RAM
64mb nVidia Geforce 4 MX440
17" Monitor (1200x1024)
Samsung CD-RW (52x52x24)
usb 2.0, 10/100 Lan, keyboard, mouse etc.

Since this is the cheapest model that the store offers, most components are generic; like the monitor and ram... but its a decent system, I can tell you that.

hope that helped
-Kris

I built my own form parts I bought off the net. I got a motherboard with built in sound, etho, video and a 1ghz duron for about 100. Check staples on their sundays ads you can pny memory for about $10 for a 256 stick of SDRAM and a 30gig harddrive for $30. Also check out pricewatch.com for the kit pcs that are pretty cheap.