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Linuxwatch Budget System of 2001

Posted by Hemos on from the for-real-people dept.

A reader writes "Linuxwatch.org has posted their Budget System of 2001 in response to LinuxHardware's 2001 System of the year. Boasting their system is 13% of the price and plenty of power for "normal users". Running at 1.4Ghz with 256MB RAM, it doesn't seem to bad for "normal users"(whatever that means)IMHO."

10 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. So what does it mean... by dperkins · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...if their budget system is 4 times faster than my system?

    *blush in shame*

    And I consider myself a geek...

    --
    My sig hates me. That's ok, I never cared for it much anyway.
    1. Re:So what does it mean... by talks_to_birds · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Here's a pic

      t_t_b

      --
      I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
  2. Good for a lot by JanneM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like really fast systems; I simulate brain areas for a living (or, well, for a PhD), and like lots of speed. The reality is, however, that even with an application like that, I spend a very small time actually running the simulator, and most of my time in an editor, writing code, writing papers, or writing grant proposals. This system, overall, would probably make me just as happy as a biggest-bang-of-all kind of product.

    The only app I can think of that would require the best PC available (and that does not simply require the fastest system) is games. You want to run really serious simulations or hardware design apps? Well, get a big workstation or a PC cluster or something. You want to run smaller stuff? Run it on an ordinary PC, maybe get a cup of coffee while it churns - or get some text written while the simulator is working.

    We're approaching the inflection point where it simply does not apply to get steadily faster, more potent computers. Last years machine - or that of three years ago - will do pretty much everything you throw at it. Not even MS has been able to increase system requirements at the same speed hardware has improved for the last couple of years.

    /Janne

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  3. Not a complete system.. by roguerez · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I tried to post a comment at that site, but it seems their comments system is down (slashdotted?). Anyway, I'll post it here:

    I miss a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, a floppy drive and a cpu cooler (you'll need a good one with that CPU: it will not burn out your pocket, but WILL burn out itself and your motherboard if you don't cool it properly).

    Furthermore, keeping a cdrom drive out of the equation isn't really honest. Almost any desktop box needs one. I don't know whether a NIC is included in the "system of the year", but this is the same as for a cdrom: almost any desktop box needs one.

    I guess we can double the price for this so called budget system, because working without input and output devices (silly unneeded things like a monitor/keyboard etc) is a bit difficult.

  4. Uncreative System by tempmpi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think there system lacks any creativity. Now that you can buy all the processing power an average user needs very cheaply, why do they just make a budget system centered on performance ?
    They should made a system centered on low noise or one that has good look or something other that isn't found in every system now.
    What about making a small and quite system using a shuttle sv24 barebone with a passive cooled c3 ? Or a dual duron ?
    And why did they just use 256 mb ? Now that ram is that cheap, they should brought at least 512 mb while that 1.4 ghz athlon isn't really needed. Or what about ECC sdram ?

    --
    Jan
  5. It sure beats no sound card.... by 2Bits · · Score: 5, Interesting
    In our company, computers are not even allowed to have sound card, coz:

    • Employees are sitting too close to each other, sound card would just disturb other people
    • Everyone is in one big room (for better communication between employees, that's what we're told), so no sound insulation
    • Sound card does not add any value to coding and debugging
    • The company is against pirating music from Napster
    • The company is against sound pollution
    • The company is a software development house, not a music content creator
    • You are supposed to work, not listen to radio during company's time
    • It saves money for the company. When the company makes profits, everyone will be better off (last time I checked, the company's making profit, and those who are better off seem to all have pointy hair. Well, we don't have snacks anymore, as this is not healthy. So I guess we are better off too...)
  6. Actually, it makes lots of sense.. by schon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Obviously, the reason hardware prices have gone down is because the cost of building computer components goes down over time.

    No, the reason hardware prices go down is because hardware companies have competition

    Cost to design and engineer a CPU or video card costs $X .. company sells enough to cover costs, and (slowly) starts dropping the price because now they only have to worry about manufacturing costs.. If they didn't drop their prices, their competition begins to steal their marketshare.

    Software company releases an OS or Office Suite, and sells enough to cover programmers time. They then see they have no competition, and decide "well, we'll just keep the price the same - we have no reason to lower our prices, because we have no competition."

  7. Some Linux Distros Can't install on small disks:-( by billstewart · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I have a lab at work that includes a few interesting boxes, a bunch of routers and switches and network connections to test and demonstrate and teach the stuff we sell, and a bunch of helper boxes whose job is to answer pings, display tcpdumps, run web and ftp servers with exciting files like "1MBjunk.txt" and "100MBjunk.txt", run MRTG and other network collectors, etc. Because AT&T was once a computer company (:-), we have a bunch of boxes that the IT People (Mordac the Preventer and his bean-counting kin) have forgotten about, with cute little death star logos on them and then-fast P66 processors, but usually disk drives that are 1GB or less.


    RED HAT REALLY CHOKES BADLY AUTOPARTITIONING SMALL DISKS. It likes to keep things proportional and make sure there's lots of room in /home and /var and /tmp, and picks how much space /usr and I think /usr/local get, and if you try to install GNOME or KDE, even after ditching enough other stuff to make the "total" space requirements fit, it wants to put more stuff in /usr than it has room for and doesn't adapt well. And of course now, it can't even do an install from one CDROM (on the web server, since my P66s didn't have CDs), and insists that all the files it downloads from FTP need to be in the same directory, so even my FTP server's once-huge 4GB drive doesn't have enough space to install 1.3GB of CDROM on the hard drive, whereas before it could serve any netbooters from the CDROM in the CDROM drive (not blazingly fast, but I don't need that.) Sigh.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  8. Re:And they wonder why sales have dropped... by Penrif · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From "man make"

    -s Silent operation; do not print the commands as they are executed.

    -j jobs
    Specifies the number of jobs (commands) to run simultaneously. If there is more than one -j option, the last one is effective. If the
    -j option is given without an argument, make will not limit the number of jobs that can run simultaneously.

    I'm not sure what making make silent gets you as far as using SMP for compilation (considering terminal output is pretty free these days), perhaps you meant "make -j"?

  9. Slashdotted Servers by batobin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I really don't see what the big deal is with slashdotted servers. I've had two of my own articles posted on slashdot, and rode the wave just fine....ON A CABLE MODEM.

    Yes, it's true. I hosted a review / editorial site on a Cox@home cable modem for around a year and a half. Never had a problem. It maxed at 30k/sec upstream. Images might have been slow to load, but the entire page always loaded in less than 10 seconds (and rest assured, it had plenty of images, screenshots, and data to load). I think the problem lies less with the amount of visitors going to the site, but with the inefficient page designs with inefficiently placed and uncompressed images.

    But then again, maybe I'm just blowing my own horn. :)