hello.

i am trying to build a computer for programming.
im going to use it in the science fair this year.
and i hope to become a computer software engineer when
i get older.

so i wanted to use linux because it is faster and has less
viruses and i have had problems with the windows operating
system.

i have $500 to spend on a computer and i have been researching on what
to buy and what has been compatible with linux and i dont know much so
i wanted a professional opinion on what to buy.

i have a list please make any suggestions....


Motherboard - ASUS P5N-E SLI
CPU - Intel core 2 duo 7200
Memory - 2gb DDR2 800Mhz
Hard Drive - SATA - 300 Seagate
CD Drive - 20 speed DVD rw
Video Card- EVGA GeForce 8500 GT
Power Supply - 500 watts

Everything looks ok.

That motherboard is listed in the HCL:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...ct/3826/cat/37
and here as well:
http://hardware4linux.info/system/313/

ASUS boards can be problematic if they have incompatible components, but I hear that most of these incompatibilities have been ironed out over time.

Hya,

Among your list:
Motherboard ok, according to http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...t/3826/cat/all
Video card ok, according to http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d...173.14.12.html

I guess CPU is ok,

Memory and power are a kind of generic.

These days, HD and CD(DVD) are not problematic.

But, summing up each components, is it possible to make within 500?

I just browsed www.microcenter.com and find
CPU 100
video card 50
mother board 80
memory 40
HD 150
power 25
DVD 20
case 30

I assume you can build your own. You have display, keyboard and pointing device.

If you still have concern, one way is to buy linux preinstalled one ($250 at microcenter) and replace (or add) components. May cost less, and you can learn almost as much as you would (compared to your original intension).

Good luck.

Happy Penguins!

Given your stated goal of programming, I would suggest you go down the line on the video card and use the money you save to go up the line on the power supply.

A power supply is not sexy, and it is a place where a novice system builder will often cut corners, but this is always a mistake. You want a supply that has good regulation AND will fail safe, if it fails.

A cheap supply can frequently be the cause of inexplicable lockups due to poor regulation. Also, they tend to age badly, with their regulation deteriorating as they get older. Further, and worst of all, if they fail they may spike their load, killing motherboards, processors, memory, and video cards.

Better quality supplies won't exhibit these issues - and in particular, they will usually fail safe, shutting off their outputs instantly when a fault condition occurs.

To develop, unless you are doing advanced game development, you won't need that video card.

thanks for all the advice i will definitely look over at everything you said

it means alot.

thanks again.

Seagate is an OK hard drive manufacture. I prefer either Western Digital or Hitachi because their drives has lower latency. ASUS motherboards in my opinion has reliability and stability problems. Also they are expensive for their quality.

Another setup that I may put together is the following.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Pu...umber=12768987

Sure the case comes with a power supply, but it is not as good as the one I selected. You can get the setup, but you need to select a smaller capacity hard drive, select smaller capacity memory, and leave out some other hardware to come close to your budget. I think an AMD system is cheaper than Intel. If you are thinking of bringing the computer to the science fair, a small case will ease transporting. Showing off Linux in the science fair is boring, so using a GPGPU like a GeForce8 or GeForce9 can make it more interesting. Learning the CUDA development kit is very steep, but you will get a lot of "wow" from a lot of people.

I didn't realize how inexpensive that 8500GT card is.

You still shouldn't cut corners on the power supply.

If you check here:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/p...ulatorlite.jsp

A 500W power supply is plenty for such a system. But make sure you get a good brand PSU, something like Chieftec or better.

Electro,

For science fair, my mom mentioned GPU. She is familiar with it and works in a group that is experimenting with some GPU programming but she doesn't know it. We will look up the CUDA development kit. She wanted me to learn a little about programming and maybe get into some parallel stuff. We are thinking about good ideas for science fair. One is chemistry related. Can you get a program to automatically identify what class of compounds something is? She says we will have to use something like a genetic algorithm. Then, we can measure how much faster it runs on two processors. But, we are still thinking about ideas.