# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  Buying A New Computer

## O'nus

Hi everyone,

I want to buy a new computer.  I already have 2 laptops so I am a little more inclined to get a pc.  The HP slimline pc looks good, but I am not up to date on the "evolution" of computers.

I hear rumours that there is a new Windows OS coming out at the end of this month or later..?  I have also noticed a dramatic increase in RAM capability in just the past year.  I have a laptop from last year which has 480 mb ram and suddenly, only a year later, it is obsolete.  Not only are games minimal requirements 512 mb ram, but I see laptops going up to 2 GB ram?&#33;  Am I missing something here..?  

I have noticed that computers are in the price range of &#036;900-1400, so this works out great for me.  Money is not really an issue.

Any advice..?

~

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## Ynot

> I hear rumours that there is a new Windows OS coming out at the end of this month or later..?[/b]



Wow, hows live under a rock?   ::bigteeth::  

Yep, Windows Vista
Personally, I wouldn&#39;t touch vista with a barge-pole
but that&#39;s hardly an objective opinion.....





> I have also noticed a dramatic increase in RAM capability in just the past year.  I have a laptop from last year which has 480 mb ram and suddenly, only a year later, it is obsolete.  Not only are games minimal requirements 512 mb ram, but I see laptops going up to 2 GB ram?&#33;  Am I missing something here..?[/b]



standard ram on a stock PC at the moment is 1Gb
You can get 1Gb (and, for a premium 2Gb) on a single stick
but it really does depend how you use your PC

Games?  4Gb will make you very happy

If money is no object, then build your own
you&#39;ll get exactly what you want
Want a neon flashing case? go for one
instead of buying an off-the-self flashy case comp
with the case costing half the RRP and giving you a shitty PC

Advice.....
Go dual core for proc.
Go PCI-Express for graphics

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## Kaniaz

Yes, a new Windows OS is coming out slap bang end of this month. It&#39;s quite pretty (and in my not-so-objective opinion either, worth it). RAM and pretty much most computer memory/speed type things increase capacity/speed dramatically - see Moore&#39;s Law if you&#39;ve never heard of it before.

You should be looking at 1-2GB if you want a sensible amount for the future.

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## Ynot

you wait.....you just wait......

6 months from now, forums, globally, will be chok-a-blok full of "Vista ate my music licences" posts

mark my words.....

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## Keeper

make one now, and wait ...

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## Kaniaz

But of _course._

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## dsr

O&#39;nus, what do you need the computer for?

If you are not a heavy gamer (meaning you weigh less than 200 lbs or 90 kg) I recommend Apple&#39;s iMac. Yes, I know many people think "Macs suck" without ever having used one in their lives. Well, let&#39;s see. Mac OS X is a superior OS to Windows (BSD and GNU/Linux distros still get my vote), the iMac is actually not overpriced (starts at &#036;999 with an Intel Core 2 Duo), there is a Mac OS X equivalent for almost every Windows program, you can run Windows software and the occasional game in Wine or CrossOver directly on Mac OS X, and you can even run Windows as its own OS on an iMac if you love the world of viruses and spyware. The hardware looks awesome and takes up almost no space. Windows Vista is coming out soon, but from what I&#39;ve heard, it&#39;s just an overpriced version of XP with some Mac OS X features. Mac OS X Leopard is also coming out, and it looks like it will be even better than the current Mac OS X Tiger. If you are leaning toward another manufacturer that comes with Windows preinstalled, compare the hardware specs and the cost with the iMac. Apple might actually be offering the less expensive and more powerful solution.

The one exception to my "avoid Windows at all costs" rule is if you are addicted to computer games. In that case, assemble your own PC to get the fastest computer for the price. Newegg.com seems to offer the best prices in general (mail-in rebates notwithstanding). Run Windows XP (Vista is a memory hog, which doesn&#39;t bode well for games) or GNU/Linux with Cedega (or a well-configured Wine installation). Ubuntu and SUSE don&#39;t require much knowledge of computers, and they offer all the main benefits of a free OS: stable -- crashing is extremely rare, secure -- hardly any vulnerabilities especially in comparison to Windows and no viruses or spyware, fast/powerful -- fully customizable kernel and UNIX command-line, etc.

Wow, I just realized that I overuse parentheses&#33; May I please have a cookie?

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## QwinsepiaSquared

*hands over cookie*

I wouldn&#39;t reccomend building your own computer if you don&#39;t know what you&#39;re doing. You&#39;ll just end up with a useless box. If you have a friend that&#39;s really good at building computers, you might as him/her to build exactly what you want and hopefully for a cheaper price.

If you&#39;re just going to use your computer for the web, get a lower range one and put your money into your ISP. If you&#39;re a mega gamer, get something at the high end of the range that will keep up with new games for quite a few years. That&#39;s assuming you have absolutely no issue with money, seeing as top of the line machines can top &#036;4,000.

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## dsr

Yay, I got a cookie&#33; QuinsepiaSquared, I agree that you shouldn&#39;t try to assemble a computer if you don&#39;t know what you&#39;re doing at all, but there are some good books and web sites that can get you up to speed. I seem to remember this site being a good tutorial if you read it step by step. Come to think of it, there is also a For Dummies book on the subject.

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## MSG

> you wait.....you just wait......
> 
> 6 months from now, forums, globally, will be chok-a-blok full of "Vista ate my music licences" posts
> 
> mark my words.....
> [/b]



Call me when that happens, k?

If you make a concious effort to stay away from DRM (it&#39;s not hard people, just simply steer clear of any online music purchasing services) then you&#39;ll be fine.

As for Gaming on Vista, I&#39;ve got mixed feelings. I ran Battlefield 2 & 2142, Half-Life 2 (and almost all the other source games) on Vista (3.2 ghz, 1GB of ram, and a nvidia 7600) and here&#39;s what I found:

*Pros:*
- The games ran/loaded a lot faster, probably due to the fact that it was a clean Vista installation and Vista&#39;s new memory management thing that Kaniaz told me about.
- DirectX 10 - Not something that will matter until games start using it, but oh will it be sweet.

*Cons:*
- When playing Battlefield 2142, I was kicked from Punkbuster for having "inadequate OS privileges" (it even says you need "Windows XP with admin rights" on the game box), but this was fixed easily by running the program as administrator: Just right click (mac user: "lol whats right click?") and select "Run as administrator". I admit that UAC is a tad bit annoying but it&#39;s easy to turn that off.
- Drivers drivers drivers - This is a problem that will go away within a few months (providing that hardware companies get their ass in gear), but it is still an annoying one. My obscure sound card was viewed as a modem from the operating system. I managed to get sound to work - kinda, but it ceased to work in Half-Life as soon as I started to play a new game. (It was pretty weird, since the game couldn&#39;t use sound, the G-man&#39;s lips didn&#39;t move in the opening scene).

One thing I&#39;ve heard people say that&#39;s quite annoying is this:
_It uses up all of my ram&#33; Just look at the task manager, see, Free memory: none_
That&#39;s Vista&#39;s new RAM caching, basically it puts the extra RAM you&#39;re not using to good use. When you close a program it keeps it in memory so it loads faster next time you run it. There&#39;s also superfetch, which watches what programs you use and, after a while, tries to predict what programs you will use when, preloading them into the RAM when it thinks you&#39;re gonna use them. Of course when new programs are introduced and it needs more RAM, cache&#39;d programs are moved out of memory. Right now I have 13 MB of ram free, 512 is being used, and 1009 is holding cached programs. Some may think that Aero uses up all the RAM since the minimum requirement for it is 1GB (but really, if you have less than 1GB, then that&#39;s pretty sad), however right now the aero process (dwm.exe) is using 2 megabytes (because I&#39;m in remote desktop), but when I&#39;m using the actual computer it tends to stay at about 24 MB.

Windows (Vista) is an operating system that does the thinking for you, so you don&#39;t have to.





> BSD and GNU/Linux distros still get my vote[/b]



Both the greatest and worst thing about Linux/UNIX is the fact that everything needs configuring. It&#39;s great because it allows for the most customizability, but it sucks because not everybody cares (especially grandma) whether their print server renders print jobs client-side or server-side. They just want it to work, that&#39;s all.





> The hardware looks awesome and takes up almost no space.[/b]



I do have to admit, Apple does make some sexy hardware (except for the mighty mouse), I mean look how popular iTunes/iPod is, and it&#39;s not exactly the pinnacle of media systems software-wise.

*EDIT:* Haha, way to stay on topic, MSG. O&#39;nus: Buying from an OEM vendor is usually good since you get a warranty, support, and the whole shebang, but they usually install shitty software on your computer that the companies pay them to install, so if you buy a Dell or HP or something then make sure you ask that they not install anything but the OS. As for a Mac, I think it&#39;d be fine as long as you just do simple stuff like browse the web and IM, but if you do get a mac don&#39;t even think about being able to upgrade anything.

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## O'nus

Thanks guys.

I am looking for a computer because I would certainly like to play some new games.  However, I am glad I made this post because I never really thought of &#39;why&#39; I needed a computer.  After careful consideration - I do not really need one besides leisure desires.  I think I may hold off on a new computer for a while.  All I really need is something to type essay&#39;s on and perhaps play some games.  

This thread has really made me realize I am no longer a computer geek.. lol.. I know nothing&#33;  What&#39;s an OEM? 

~

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## Ynot

> What&#39;s an OEM?[/b]



Original Equipment Manufacturer

companies that sell the hardware box with all the software pre-installed
(ie. Dell, Compaq, etc. etc.)

it makes a difference, as they will install windows using their OEM licence number
and there&#39;s usually some clause in the warranty that if you wipe the disk and re-install from anything other than their restore disks, you void the warranty

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## Kaniaz

Don&#39;t buy from an OEM if you can avoid it. They can turn what would be a fine computer into a rather crappy one with their "backup disks", "backup partitions", and - my favourite - Norton Antivirus. Why does that piece of crap get bundled so much?

*XP.* Woefully old. Too old. Creaky gate kind of old. It was good once upon a time, it will hold a place in many people&#39;s hearts for the future, but frankly, it&#39;s just old. Don&#39;t use it when new OSes are coming out of the wazoo, pick another solution. I&#39;m not using it, why should you?

*Vista.* Coming out soon. Sprightly and new. Supposedly going to be shot down by virus authors in ten seconds (so say press releases written by antivirus vendors). I&#39;ve been using it, no problems so far, although the price tag makes me cringe so very slightly, although that&#39;s possibly what you get when you insist on "Ultimate" edition. Not a memory-hog, not going to kill your dog, it works (for me). I think it&#39;s a nice upgrade and still works with a lot of applications you&#39;re familiar with but it&#39;s not going to _revolutionize your computing experience_ or whatever BS they claim.

*Linux.* Great stuff, you&#39;re supporting the wonderful free open source folks, and you&#39;ll recommend it to all your friends because it doesn&#39;t cost you a red cent. Which is nice. But then the novelty wears off and the feelings succinctly put as "oh-shit it&#39;s not really that different from any other OS" and "did I really just spend my entire weekend getting a wireless network card working" set in. Great for servers, I still feel not great for casual users. I would (and do) use it in some scenarios it excels at.

*Mac.* Very pretty. There can be no doubt about it, there&#39;s some catching up to be done from both Windows and Linux camps when it comes to visually whoring your OS out. Then, of course, you look at the receipt and wonder if the same old computing experience with pretty glowing buttons was really worth that premium. So yes, very pretty, very trendy, very expensive. I would not buy one because I can&#39;t.

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## RetepNamenots

> "did I really just spend my entire weekend getting a wireless network card working"[/b]



I did&#33;

I&#39;m going to wait a few months and buy a computer a while after Vista. All the current vista compatible pieces of hardware are only in 1st generation at the moment. So firstly, prices should drop, and companies should start building everything towards what everyone wants..

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## MSG

Yeah same here. I&#39;m about to buy a laptop, but I&#39;m going to wait until after it&#39;s released (3 days from now) so I can get the price advantage over Vista and Office 2k7 (which is sexy).

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## Kaniaz

> I did&#33;[/b]



Me too, actually. _dhcpcd_ was the problem.

(As for Vista compatible pieces of hardware, you mean the drivers? I mean it&#39;s not like old pieces of hardware can&#39;t work on any particular OS).

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## Tsen

Well, Windows is certainly nice for games.  I mean, it&#39;s really the only system you can go out and buy a game at Wal-Mart, put the disk in the drive, and expect it to work.
But I think you&#39;ve underestimated Linux.
Debian&#39;s remarkably automatic.  It configures itself almost entirely without help.
And Ubuntu (Debian&#39;s sexy daughter) requires virtually no setup.  In fact, when I reinstalled Windows from scratch on my HP Presario (Yes, sad, I know), Windows didn&#39;t recognize the universal media slots that came preinstalled on the computer.  It didn&#39;t recognize my wireless card or my ethernet card, either.  That made setting up the internet all sorts of fun.
Ubuntu, meanwhile, recognized every device on my machine, excepting the wireless card since the manufacturers refused to supply Linux drivers.

The best part is, while you Winblows users are out trying to find your manufacturer&#39;s website to download and install the latest drivers for your graphics card, your wireless card, and your printer, Linux users just update the Kernel and ALL drivers are automatically included.  Things just work.

And I really love installing new programs--I don&#39;t have to spin in a circle twice and throw salt over my left shoulder to prove my Windows is "genuine".  I don&#39;t have to go through long installation windows and CD-Keys.  And, obviously, I don&#39;t have to pay a cent.
I just click "add/remove programs", browse the categories of programs or search for a specific program, click install.  And again, it just works.

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## Kaniaz

> ALL drivers are automatically included. Things just work.[/b]







> I don&#39;t have to go through long installation windows and CD-Keys. And, obviously, I don&#39;t have to pay a cent.[/b]



Uh. That is exactly how my Windows installation was (and is). As with any OS, mileage varies. One person&#39;s experience will never ever be a gauge of how everyone else is going to fare. But for the record:I didn&#39;t need to install a single driver. At all. On Vista, or indeed XP. My graphics card just worked. Windows Update actually found the drivers. This is particularly contrary to my experience with Linux (a driver for 56k? Good luck, folks&#33 :wink2:  but I think the best thing to say here is that neither OS is better at this: your mileage will vary.I don&#39;t quite know how you exaggerated pressing &#39;continue&#39; on a Genuine Advantage check (you know, the kind of check that millions of people have somehow got through with no griping). I haven&#39;t actually had to do a single check yet that I was aware of.I install programs by double clicking a .msi. It might not be install from this list of 10,000 RPMs which does not include every single package ever (and in fact is a damned far cry useless if you&#39;re trying to install any application even slightly by the wayside), but I manage.Calling it Winblows is just _sad._

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## Ynot

> a driver for 56k? Good luck, folks&#33;[/b]



Winmodem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winmodem

1. Swear at the manufacturers
2. Buy another modem

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## Kaniaz

> 1. Swear at the manufacturers[/b]



Trust me, I did _everything._ Then I realised it wasn&#39;t half worth my time.

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## Ynot

> I did _everything._ [/b]



except buy a decent modem, it seems.......

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## Kaniaz

You think I was going to pay for a new modem so I could get on the internet, experience the true thrill of the open source rainbow and find the arcane incantations that would get my sound card working and then spend another weekend downloading all the libraries I&#39;d need to compile just about anything I wanted to use?

*Answer:* I wasn&#39;t. And I&#39;m still not.

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## Ynot

you have no sense of adventure

 ::bigteeth::

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## MSG

I don&#39;t get how automatically detecting hardware / finding drivers is supposed to be some huge acheivement, but I think we can all agree that right now, Windows and Linux install equally easily, provided that you don&#39;t use obscure hardware (however, Vista was able to automatically find and install drivers for my TV Tuner, whereas with Linux, it took me hours of hunting before I got a driver that required a complicated install process that almost made me cry). The major problem with Linux is the programs.

Let&#39;s start with the package manager. I liked the centralization of everything, however the part I didn&#39;t like was how I was relying on Ubuntu&#39;s cooperation in making sure their packages are constantly updated. Usually, I had to wait a few days, if not weeks, before the latest version was delivered to me (I went 3 weeks without realizing that there was a new version of XGL (Which is a pretty popular program), so I decided to add the official XGL release repository to my sources list, to which then it caused conflicts and broke apt-get, to the point where I couldn&#39;t install _any_ programs. I managed to get it working again, but it wasn&#39;t exactly a fun process).

Well, for the times when the package manager WAS working, installing programs was pretty easy. Just go into a terminal (Grandma: Will I have to type for this?) and say sudo apt-get install _______. The part about it wanting my password was a bit irritating, but I didn&#39;t break my back over it. I went with the advice on www.ubuntuguide.org to assist me in choosing which program was best. What I found was that on top of a flawed program delivery system, the programs themselves were crap. Talk about homebrew pieces of shit, almost all of the programs were waay underdeveloped (especially visually). Even if they did appear complete, they were much buggier than they should be. For instance, Blender and Firefox crashed far more often than their Windows versions. The only FTP program I could find was gFTP, that crashing monstrocity, the only IRC client I could use was Xchat, which developed some weird character bug in which ugly unicode characters with hexadecimal in them surrounded people&#39;s nicks on every line (I later resorted to mIRC in WINE, because I started needing decent logs for stats and stuff).

There was more but I don&#39;t feel like recollecting any further.

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## Ynot

msg,
with all the problems you seem to have, I&#39;d say linux isn&#39;t for you
keep windows or get a mac
whatever you want, really

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## Kaniaz

> you have no sense of adventure[/b]



It died with the eventual nine months I did use Linux.  :tongue2:  But it&#39;s not all bad - it was fine with broadband. Plug in, turn on, go. It was AOL Broadband, in fact. Don&#39;t ask me how I got it working without their client because I don&#39;t remember either. Either way, Linux is great fun if you can get past the initial frustration.

I would use it for a server. Definitely. Windows has got nothing on it, unless you&#39;re using Windows Server edition or something which comes with enterprise &#036;1,000 fees. No thanks.

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## MSG

> I&#39;d say linux isn&#39;t for you
> [/b]



What I&#39;m merely doing is the equivalent of parking my car in front of a crooked store or corporation that has ripped me off, with a "BUYER BEWARE" sign, in order to warn others of the warped mentality that the Linux crowd will instill into their minds. It&#39;s nothing that people don&#39;t do to Microsoft, the difference being, most people don&#39;t actually experience problems with Windows, they just hear about them and pass them along.

I see that you are just as fed up with arguing over OS&#39;s as I am, so I hereby drop my case and accept the fact that different operating systems are made for different people*.
_
* Even though Linux is made for doodooheads ;)_

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## Ynot

I have my minimum font size set to 14pt

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## MSG

My intension wasn&#39;t to make it unreadable, otherwise I wouldn&#39;t have wrote it, right?

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## Tsen

Er...I had TONS of bad experiences with Windows.  Reinstalling and configuring took the better part of a day from me.  Ubuntu set up and was completely customized in a half hour.  (And entirely up-to-date).  
As for stability, I went through six months of software crashes on Windows.  Still don&#39;t know what caused it, but drivers are what I&#39;m suspecting.  On a regular basis, at least once a week and typically once or twice every two days, my computer would freeze entirely and have to be reboot.  
Then I had a lovely conversation (three, actually) with tech support.  The last one was the most annoying.  "Hallo, mynameisDave.  I live in Geeohrgeeuh, that&#39;s in Ahmehrika."  Ugh.  Then they gave me the same instructions despite me telling them that I&#39;d already done that the last two times I was on tech support, and it wasn&#39;t helping.  Then he tried to pitch a &#036;100 warranty extension because I was two weeks from the end of my warranty and he refused to replace it because "Sohftwere prooblems are noht coovered" by my current warranty.
But don&#39;t worry about that--I blame the crappy support on HP, not Microsoft.
I DO, however, blame the mystery freezes on Windows.
I&#39;ve only had Linux crash once since I installed it, and only because I did something stupid with a new cursor theme.  To fix it, all I had to do was press ctrl-alt-backspace to back out to the login screen, log back in with failsafe-gnome mode, and unset the theme.  Problem solved.
As for your complaint of "visually underdeveloped", may I just show you my new lover:

AmaroK kicks the hell out of any Windows or Mac music manager/players, visuals included.
You&#39;re right, though--visually, most Linux programs aren&#39;t quite up to par.  And some are missing some functionality at the moment--but that&#39;s because of what they are.  Linux programs aren&#39;t typically released at 1.0.  Usually they&#39;re already hitting the market at 0.1 as a beta, because people want the functionality ASAP.  Then, it&#39;s taken, finished, updated, and improved upon, not by highly-paid programmers working for a multi-million dollar corporation, but by a few part-time coders working at home.  So, yeah, it isn&#39;t as well-developed all the time.  I still use it without any troubles, though.  
I even game on Linux-- Savage, Enemy Territory, Tremulous, Glest.  All work flawlessly on Linux.
And hey, Savage and Glest weren&#39;t even in the repositories for Ubuntu, so I had to install them manually.  No biggie.  Just downloaded a .run file and extracted it.  Bam.  Done.

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## Kaniaz

> And hey, Savage and Glest weren&#39;t even in the repositories for Ubuntu, so I had to install them manually. No biggie. Just downloaded a .run file and extracted it. Bam. Done.[/b]



That is most definitely the exception rather than the rule.

Support for anything these days is shit (you&#39;d do better to ask someone you know). I&#39;m definitely betting on bad drivers there - which is ironic, since we&#39;re talking about unsigned/signed drivers. That would explain STOP screens, freezes, and frankly pretty much anything wrong.

Vista actually moves a lot of things into user mode as opposed to kernel mode so that, like Linux, when a driver fucks up, it doesn&#39;t crash and burn: it stops, restarts the driver and gets back to work [telling you what&#39;s happened of course].

I&#39;ve got an uptime of three weeks and over on Vista RC1 here, which is not even RTM. I think that&#39;s a testament to the fact that it can be just as stable as Linux. I honestly think something is wrong with people who claim their computers stop working after thirty minutes "because of Windows" (which is a lot like saying your car stopped working because you dropped twenty spanners into the car&#39;s engine but it&#39;s still Ford&#39;s fault, but yeah).

On other notes, AmaroK is basically 10x better than anything else in the same ballpark, although reccomending Green Day for anything is a travesty I might consider unforgivable in any other circumstance. I consider that program in particular a testament of how open source can work and work wonders, but as you say, and as I found myself, too many programs have a very raw, unpolished feel to them.

Vista&#39;s UI is better than KDE, no kidding. Linux is ugly although it really never bothered me that much. Distros are increasingly putting in compositors and crap, but I still feel that with the exception of Macs, nothing has come quite up to the same level as Vista yet. Including XGL (I care about &#39;jelly windows&#39; like, at all?)

I often wonder about open source and the _scrum_ philosophy it&#39;s adopted. It&#39;s a lot of disjointed developers all with different things they want to do; I want to know how they intend to achieve true consistency throughout programs. You tell me Linux&#39;s UI is consistent, you would be the biggest liar ever.

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## Tsen

I&#39;m guessing it was drivers that caused the crashes, but that wouldn&#39;t be my fault--I installed Windows certified drivers whenever possible, but my wireless card, my printer, and my sound card had drivers unsupported by Windows--again, something I blame on HP for putting together a crappily supported computer.
My point with the whole drivers bit is that on Linux, you don&#39;t need to worry about signed drivers--if they&#39;re in the kernel, they&#39;re supported.  And their support database, despite being far younger than Microsoft&#39;s, is much larger as far as I can tell.  Printer support is the only thing I&#39;ve found lacking--I can&#39;t use the &#036;30 Lexmark printer/scanner I got for christmas because Lexmark refuses to publish Mac or Linux drivers for it.  <Asses.>
Everything else in Ubuntu is automated--I&#39;ve never heard of a driver problem with anything but custom game controllers, printers, wireless cards and dial-up modems, in all cases because of the massive variation between individual products.

On the Green Day thing--I hadn&#39;t noticed that recommendation--creepy.  Green Day, recommended to a Queen listener?  Doesn&#39;t seem quite compatible to me.
Although, I must say Green Day was pretty awesome.  It&#39;s just the band&#39;s new "vengeful emo" look and sound that bugs the crap out of me.  Green Day, _you are dead to me._

On Open Source development--that&#39;s why I&#39;m an Ubuntu user.  Ubuntu&#39;s organization and community is quite adept and producing quality work in an organized fashion.  They put out regularly scheduled updates, have several teams of organized members with set goals, and generally work better together than the rest of the Linux community, which tends to be disjointed at best.
Here&#39;s an example of what I mean:
Ubuntu Team Specifications.

I&#39;m fully behind them on all their work--I really think that their new take on open source stands a good chance of success.  I&#39;m a member of the Ubuntu Art Team (trying to put my two cents in to reduce the gap between Windows and Linux--not an easy thing to do, but a good goal to aim for).
Meanwhile, when Linux has shortcomings, I&#39;m not afraid to turn to Windows, just reluctant.

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## TweaK

> [...]
> [/b]



MSG, I think you just got the wrong distro. I mean, everyone&#39;s all "yay Ubuntu" but my personal experience with Ubuntu is crap times a thousand. 

Yes I know Linux can be a _huge_ bitch when it comes to hardware and often even the tiniest little typo in a config file can kill an entire application from working alltogether *but* my time with Fedora Core 6 on ONE PC was great (I mean, yay for yum&#33; It hadn&#39;t failed me, ever), but when I tried to install it on another PC of mine it just failed to work.

The thing is, Linux has a severe lack of SiS (SATA) Controller support and God, does that suck.

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## Tsen

What distro of Ubuntu did you use?  I haven&#39;t tried anything older than 6.06, but I haven&#39;t had any problems running it on my computer, or two of my friends and the computer downstairs.
It supports one of the widest (if not the widest) array of hardware of any Linux distro.  It&#39;s also got the biggest community, and it&#39;s growing fastest, so the holes in its support are rapidly being plugged.

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## Kaniaz

I ordered ten free Ubuntu disks.

I do not need them and am unlikely to use more than one of them (for VPC purposes).

Ha-ha.

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## Richter

I had a question about a new pc; I didn&#39;t want to make a new topic about it though, as...  THERE&#39;S ALREADY ONE HERE&#33;  Joy&#33;   :tongue2:   I buying this computer for gaming, plain and simple.  (Gotta get Oblivion to run well...  >_<)  Based on the discussion here, Windows seems better for that.  I&#39;m just beginning to get savvy with all this tech stuff, so go easy on me.  My proficiency with computers is about that of Bush&#39;s speaking skills; I can talk, but the end result is...  erm...

Basically, I got a price from my local pc shop.  It&#39;s only a tower, as I have all the other hardware needed.  It has a list of included hardware, but I don&#39;t know what alot of the hardward "titles" mean.

 The PACKAGE
--------------------
Processor:       Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz - 4MB Cache - 1066MHz FSB - Socket 775)  --- &#036;450

Motherboard:     ASUS P5N-E SLi LGA775 Socket Intel Quad-Core, NVIDIA nForce 650i SLITM + nForce 430i, FSB1333/1  --- &#036;170

GFX Card:      NVIDIA GF7950 GT KO-PCIE-512-E - EVGA 7950GT 512MB PCI Express  ---  &#036;400

Memory:        PC2-5300 512MB 667MHz DDR II (Buffalo)  --- &#036;80

Fan?:           Coolermaster Centurion 5 Silver No Window, No Power Supply  --- &#036;65

Power:         550 Watt CG PS-550W Dual 12V, Dual Fan, SATA, 24/20/8pin Power  --- &#036;80

Disc Drive:       18x DVD+RW, Double Layer, Dual Format  --- &#036;65

Hard Drive:       160GB 7200RPM Seagate SATA II w/NCQ  ---  &#036;95

OS:              Windows   --- &#036;120... or less...   ::D: 
----------------------
Comes to a grand total of about &#036;1,300...  with tax.  I know I could do better for gaming, but that&#39;s all that&#39;s in my price range right now.  I&#39;m planning on getting another GF7950 card for SLi, but later, and prolly of Newegg when it&#39;s cheaper.

Is this worth it?  It sounds alright to me, but then again, what do I know?  Is there any reasonable way to get this for cheaper?  Please, ANY advice, even "STFU noob&#33;, taht POS pc is teh suXXor" would be appreciated.

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## Tsen

If you&#39;re even thinking of running Oblivion, you&#39;d better get at least another 512 MB of RAM.  1 GB is a pretty good benchmark for most computers nowadays, and having at least 1 gig is pretty much required for most any modern game.
And hell, if you really need to keep the cost down, you don&#39;t really need to _buy_ Windows.  *cough*ThePirateBay.org*cough*.

EDIT:
Oh, and BTW, if those are the prices quoted to you by the computer shop, then chances are you&#39;re not getting a good deal.  Check online, on something like Froogle, to see if you can find better prices on the components.  Chances are you will.

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## TweaK

> I had a question about a new pc; I didn&#39;t want to make a new topic about it though, as...  THERE&#39;S ALREADY ONE HERE&#33;  Joy&#33;    I buying this computer for gaming, plain and simple.  (Gotta get Oblivion to run well...  >_<)  Based on the discussion here, Windows seems better for that.  I&#39;m just beginning to get savvy with all this tech stuff, so go easy on me.  My proficiency with computers is about that of Bush&#39;s speaking skills; I can talk, but the end result is...  erm...
> 
> Basically, I got a price from my local pc shop.  It&#39;s only a tower, as I have all the other hardware needed.  It has a list of included hardware, but I don&#39;t know what alot of the hardward "titles" mean.
> 
>  The PACKAGE
> --------------------
> Processor:       Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz - 4MB Cache - 1066MHz FSB - Socket 775)  --- &#036;450
> 
> Motherboard:     ASUS P5N-E SLi LGA775 Socket Intel Quad-Core, NVIDIA nForce 650i SLITM + nForce 430i, FSB1333/1  --- &#036;170
> ...



&#036;1,300 for _that_? It&#39;s pretty good, but not THAT good. Double/triple the RAM and you&#39;ll be fine, except for the prices. You&#39;re being ripped off - 160GB 7200RPM SATA II for &#036;100? Dude, I got the 320GB version for the exact same price. &#036;80 for 512 MB RAM is reasonable but there are better deals out there. Also, &#036;450 for the motherboard? _Damn_.

I think you should look for a better deal in terms of pricing, but the specs aren&#39;t too bad.

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## blade5x

Those prices *are* a rip.

-The E6600 should cost you no more than &#036;350
-&#036;400 for a 7950GT? You could get a 8800GTS 640MB for that price&#33;
-They sell 512MB for a price that could buy 1GB (and 2GB is recommended)
-DVD Drive, they doubled the price
-Motherboard, not too bad, but it&#39;s almost the same cost a P5B-Deluxe
-Hard Drive, you could get 320GB for what they charge.

Do what TweaK said, look for better deals in pricing, or maybe it a shot and build one yourself.

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## Artelis

If you&#39;re building one yourself - has anyone suggested http://tigerdirect.com, or sometimes ever http://newegg.com

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## MSG

If you have an Electronic Fry&#39;s near you, go there instead, Most of the time their prices are even better than tigerdirect or newegg.

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## Richter

Sorry it took a while to respond, but I&#39;m definitely still interested.

*Tsen*:  Yeah, I know I&#39;m not getting the BEST deals... but I&#39;m in no way confident enough in my knowledge of computers to build one myself.  Maybe someday soon I&#39;ll be able to, but not yet.  I&#39;m just generally asking if I&#39;m not getting TOTALLY ripped off.  BTW I made a mistake in that post; that price for the memory is for TWO sticks of 512, so all&#39;s good there.

Yeah, about "buying" windows, I have this friend who knows this friend who&#39;s cousin works for Microsoft, and he might be able to get me a REALLY good deal on Vista...    ::bigteeth::  

*TweaK: * How might I get a better deal without building the computer myself?

*blade5x*:  Again, where might I find better deals without building myself?  There are no real electronics stores around me except for Best Buy, and I&#39;m guessing I&#39;d get ripped off WORSE there...

I&#39;ve tried NewEgg, and have actually bought a GFX card from them before. (It was a Radeon X800 GT at &#036;150, &#036;50 less than at the PC shop.  Unfortunately, I had to have the shop install the card for me as I was REALLY a noob at computers back then.  I can put a GFX card in nowadays, but don&#39;t know bout motherboards, memory sticks, etc...)

Is there a tutorial or such on building a PC?  From what I understand, one needs the basic componenets: case, motherboard, processor, gfx card, possibly sound card, memory, hard drive, possibly fan, power source, and a disc drive.

I don&#39;t know how to install memory, power source, or processor onto a motherboard.  I might have an idea on how to install a fan and disc drive.  I know how to do GFX cards and sound cards.  I&#39;m willing to try building myself, but I need to know EXACTLY what I&#39;m doing, like a step-by-step process.  I&#39;m willing to take smart risks; smart as in possibly &#036;400 cheaper&#33;    ::wink::

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## blade5x

Building a computer really is not that hard.

Finding compatible parts is actually harder than assembling the computer itself. Finding the parts takes time and research.

I&#39;m not sure where a step-by-step guide is, but I suggest you go for it anyway. If you order all of your parts and have any questions while assembling it, I&#39;d be happy to help you out.

It does take some patience for the first build. No need to rush it.

I&#39;m not big of pre-built retailers, but I think ibuypower.com has some pretty decent prices. I do not know of much else, because like I said, I&#39;m into the pre-built thing  :wink2:

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## MSG

Building a computer is dead easy, you should have no problems with it as long as you&#39;re not retarded. Everything is built to fit together, you&#39;ll have to do minimal screwing, some clamping, but definitely not any soldering. If you&#39;re still not too confident, get a nerd friend to show you how it&#39;s done and you&#39;ll see how easy it is.

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## PNG_pyro

My uncle is educating me about comuters; he got me an A+ study guide by Sybex, and that has just about everything that you need to know to make you computer knowlegeable. not 733t, but you know, pretty good.

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## Richter

_Building a computer is dead easy, you should have no problems with it as long as you&#39;re not retarded._

Uh, but i is ARE redarted&#33;?  o no i kant bild cumpewter&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

 ::bigteeth::  

Alright, I&#39;m pretty much convinced to build my own now, as after looking at the prices on newegg compared to Milwaukee PC, it&#39;s would amount to a HUGE difference.

Problem is, I don&#39;t know _exactly_ what to buy.  I&#39;m guessing similar hardware to what the pc shop recommended, but whatever works is fine with me.  Also, I&#39;m pretty set on buying from newegg; I&#39;ve always recieved good deals and such from them.

So, I can get a Hard Drive from Best Buy.  Same with a DVD drive and fan, etc...   I&#39;m looking at the processor, GFX card, motherboard, and memory.  What would you all recommend/what do you all use?  Be specific, as I don&#39;t know the subtle differences between two pieces of hardware&#33;

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## TweaK

The main problem is getting parts that fit together. You&#39;re going to want to have a motherboard that supports your desired CPU and has your desired slots.

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## blade5x

What&#39;s your budget?

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## MSG

> My uncle is educating me about comuters; he got me an A+ study guide by Sybex, and that has just about everything that you need to know to make you computer knowlegeable. not 733t, but you know, pretty good.[/b]



Sybex? Never heard of them - What topics does it cover? "Computer knowledgeable" is too general, you can say you know a lot about History but that doesn&#39;t mean diddly. :P






> _Building a computer is dead easy, you should have no problems with it as long as you&#39;re not retarded._
> 
> I&#39;m looking at the processor, GFX card, motherboard, and memory.  What would you all recommend/what do you all use?  Be specific, as I don&#39;t know the subtle differences between two pieces of hardware&#33;[/b]



Well, it really depends on what you&#39;re looking to use your computer for - If it&#39;s gaming, every nerd in here would have a field day picking out parts for you, but if you&#39;re just looking for a computer that let&#39;s you check Dreamviews every month or so then we&#39;re talking about a whole different setup. What will you be using this computer for? How much do you have to spend? etc.

----------

