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$600 for a system just is NOT really practical,

I beg to differ.

Six hundred dollars for a usable -- even decent -- system is perfectly practical, though not, admittedly, if you want Windows Vista Ultimate on it. Or OS X for that matter.

I'll say this here (and below): this isn't a Mac vs PC/Dell/Ubuntu argument. Macs have their advantages (design, OSX); Dells have their advantages (windows games); custum configured ubuntu's have their advantages (inexpensive, expandable). What someone chooses is up to his or her tastes and needs.

Note that this isn't intended to create the best system for $600, or even the most fantastic to upgrade. It's simply to indicate that you can quickly configure a $600 system running on your *nix OS of choice that will be very capable, very practical, and very expandable. (So please, no nitpicks about "you should have chosen component XYZ instead of ABC or a different merchant; take it as read that this can be improved on).

Just quickly grabbing parts from decent manufacturers off the shelf at my local computer outlet (http://shoprbc.com/), with no particular eye for what's on sale:

$088.00 - AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ AM2 Dual-Core 65W Processor
$053.00 - Asus M2N-MX SE AM2 Gf6100 mATX Mainboard
$052.50 - *Crucial Rendition 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory KIT
$071.00 - Seagate 7200.10 250GB SATAII Hard Drive, 5Yr
$029.00 - LG GSA-H55N 20X DVD+/-RW Drive BLACK, OEM
$097.00 - Antec NSK6580 Mid-Tower Case w/430Watt PSU, Black/Silver
$181.00 - Acer AL1516AB 15" 600:1 12ms Black LCD Monitor
$021.00 - Apevia Multimedia Keyboard/Mouse Kit, Black
$010.00 - Cyber Acoustics CA-2012RB 2.0 Desktop Speaker System, Black
$000.00 - Ubuntu 7.10
$000.00 - OpenOffice Suite
$000.00 - Assembly - Special offer - OEM warranty.
Total: $602.50

(Prices in C$; US prices at Newegg are even cheaper despite the dollar, but I can't find a good system quote feature at Newegg).

That gives you a 64-bit X86 dual core machine with decent graphics (more than adequate for any flavor of Vista, and basic 3D gaming). A 15" LCD display, mouse, keyboard and speakers. You've got 2GB of RAM (admittedly only 533MHz) which is enough to run Vista if some particular moment of masochism seizes you. (or you need to). You've got quite a respectable power supply and case, though you'll never do SLI.

This machine will run pretty much anything one could reasonably throw at it. Games a couple of years old, fairly heavy office/browsing/email use.

Expansion?

Want to run AutoCad in a few months? Pop in 2 more GB of RAM, install whatever OS and software is needed, and pop in a 6400+ AMD CPU. $53 for the RAM, $190 for a 6400+ cpu. (You might need a better monitor though!)

Want a nice gaming machine in a few months? Install Windows XP SP3 OEM, and an Nvidia 8800GT. $200-$250 for the card, $100 or so for the OS. (The power supply is good enough, though if you wanted to splurge for an Antec Earthwatts 85% efficient 500W power supply you could do that.)

I really don't understand the OP's objections to a decent system at $600.

It's eminently possible.

Will it be as good as a Mac Mini? That's entirely in the eye of the beholder. It won't run OS X which is a huge strike against it for many people, and fair enough. It won't be as elegant and small. It will be more powerful and expandable, though those count for little if you want a small elegant machine running OS X.

This isn't a Dell vs Apple or even PC vs Mac or even Linux vs Mac post. Different horses for different courses. It's simply an effort to show that $600 buys you a pretty decent system.

Holmwood

We use a 12GB DDS3 for backing up, and tapes are $9 (Canadian), that's $.75 per GB. A brand new 120 GB 7200 RPM 8MB WD ATA 100 drive is $165, or $1.38 per GB. Tapes are cheaper, and infinitely more reliable than disks.

I wouldn't trust a disk as a backup for anything other than a short-term copy of another disk image. We mirror our disks and then cut the important data to tape. The mirrors get recycled each day, tapes each week with monthly backups archived for two or more years.

I personally can't stand swapping tapes, and backups are slow (1 MB/s using SCSI-2), as a result we only backup a portion of our systems, however DDS3 (or AIT/DLT for larger companies) can't be beat.

On a side note. I just replaced a 4 month old craptacular Maxtor 120 GB drive which already has bad sectors. Who the fsck in their right mind would trust a hd as a medium for backing up (is the author of this article smoking some crack?). I understand using a hd for making a temporary copy of a disk, especially before committing the data to tape, yet for any length term backup, you have to be insane. I can play frisbee with my DDS3 tapes, and they will still last 20 years, yet the disks might last 1 year even if they aren't touched (based on current trends).