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How Cheap Can A PC Be?
geoff lane writes "Ballmer wants a $100 computer. OK, can we build a reasonable PC for just $100 and a copy of Linux? The rules are: It's assumed that a monitor, keyboard and mouse are already available. Ethernet connectivity must be provided. All components must already have Linux support. All components must be new and currently available. The result must be electrically safe for the home. Is it possible?"
When a Fry's Electronics store opened up out near Chicago, I picked up and AMD Athlon 1.3GHz, 512 meg of ram, 60 gig HDD and paid $99 for it. Of course it had Lindows installed on it, but after a quick reformat and poping in a redhat distro it was up and running in no time.
Get a 486 for $20. eg -
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cat
Install;
http://www.ipt.ntnu.no/~knutb/linux486/linux486.h
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
There might be outdated components, $20 case WITH 300W PSU combos, and some PC Chips crap, but it still falls under electrically safe... We're going to use NewEgg numbers, and not include shipping.
s cription=11-171-037&depa=1)s cription=13-185-010&depa=1)s cription=19-103-156&depa=1)s cription=20-223-007&depa=1)s cription=22-140-133&depa=1)
Case: MGE ATX case w/350W PSU $10 (one day special) (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
Mobo: PC Chips Socket A mobo $26 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
CPU: Athlon 1.33GHz $41 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
RAM: Rosewill 128MB DDR $21 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
HDD: Maxtor 40GB $45.50 (one day special) (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?de
We'll stop it here. We're using SHIT components, and we've got $143.50, without shipping, IDE cables, CD-ROM drive, etc., etc., and using one day specials.
It's possible, but not DIY.
Even better! Scrap the P4 and replace with a Celly, way cheaper!
The embedded soundcard is an ac97, supported by the mainstream Linux kernel;
The ethernet chip is a sis900, also supported under the mainstream Linux kernel;
I don't know if the embeded video card is supported by X.org (XF86 did not support it 2 years ago), but if not, one can still stick with VESA;
Of course that I am talking about my board, which is nolonger on the site (the closest one I found there is this one).
Seriously, those boards are wonderful for workstations!
$100-$200?
Have you priced Office 2003 lately? Absolutely REDICULOUS pricing model MS has.
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
AMD bought Geode some time ago, and they are soon to release a new device codenamed "Emma" with 128Mb RAM and a 10Gb HDD.
The price point is expected to be $185, but that includes Windows CE embedded and cut down versions of Word, Excel, IE and Outlook.
Who knows what the price point would be if they had have used Embedded Linux, firefox and OO instead.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
yes they did, there's a website for it here
looks pretty cool, and prolly fulfils the reqs for this article
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Er, maybe you didn't hear, but they dropped the price on the GameCube to $99 a long time ago.
The Modded Xbox is almost a viable solution, but for a more ground up design:
$18 - Celeron 700MHz 66MHz 128K FCPGA CPU OEM (socket 370)
$25 - ASUS MEW-AM Mainboard Socket 370 supporting Intel Celeron 300~533+ Onboard sound/video
$40 - 1 512mb Stick of PC100 Ram $58 if 2 256mb sticks are required.
$3 - Encore - 10/100 VIA Chipset NIC
$24 - COMP-USA ATX Case w 250W Power Supply.
$2 - Generic heatsink
Total = $112
I thought it important to load up on the RAM as compensation for the trailing edge CPU. Granted, you won't be playing Doom 3 on this machine, but it'll do most anything you want in terms of office support, though I'm not entirely sure how linux compatible the hardware is. Still, a decent machine. Prices include shipping, unless I missed something.
All prices courtesy of Pricewatch.com
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I don't know where you are getting your prices from (maybe 1996) but Dell will sell a perfectly cabable machine for less than $500, with a 15" flat panel monitor!. Ala carte, a 15" flat panel will cost one $200 by itself. Personally, I still build my own, but when someone asks for help choosing a PC, I just point them at Dell.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I am (part-time) internal developer, a.k.a sysadmin's worst nightmare. I can tell you that the dell systems I work wiht have almost as many incompatibilities as any of the machines that I have built. Plug in a USB key, and they freeze. Update an SDK, and they freeze. Not often, but just as often as my own machines.
Incompatabilities exist, and they do not go away. The only thing one can do is to do research to minimize them. Dell does it for you -- great -- you do not spend your own people doing this. On my own machine, I will do my own research and not buy Dell.
badness 10000
In fact Xebian, a distribution of debian linux for Xbox, loads an onscreen keyboard and has a joymouse driver, by default. It would be horribly painful to get anything done with the onscreen keyboard using a game controller but it is not impossible. Xebian is free, and an Xbox is $150, although it's hard to get a 1.1 through 1.3 Xbox new these days - most of them are 1.5 and 1.6 versions, either of which will require a modchip in order to run unsigned code, because you can no longer flash TSOP. However, you can get a used Xbox for about $119, most of them are old versions, and they can be flashed as long as you know someone with the hardware. (I live in Marysville, CA and I will provide this service for free, but I will not load or provide any software, I accept no liability for any damage to your Xbox, and I will not provide the BIOS code.) I have a conductive pen, 007:AUF, and a Mega X Key, and I'm not afraid to use them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Try your local state surplus. If you find out what day they get their inventory, you can get the craziest shit.
*Typing this on a 21 inch monitor he bought at North Dakota State Surplus for $20*
forget it.
I'm sure it's going to end up being bad, but I'll give it a shot:
First of all, no case. It'll work without one, so I'm not including it in my attempt. Given this, along with the fact that I'm using old, slow and therefore cooler processors, no cooling should be needed.
Second, I'm ignoring labor. If you can put Linux on your machine yourself, you can build it yourself.
Cheapest new CPU I could find was a PII-266 for $6:
Compatible motherboard Intel 440BX for $10
Lets go with a good 64MB of ram. This one uses EDO, which is $8.
Then we add a a 4MB AGP video card for $6,
a sound card for $6,
and a 10/100 LAN card for $4.
Power supply for $14.
8x CDROM drive for $9,
At this point, I might add that all of these things actually have free shipping in case you want to do this.
With the exception of power supplies, which are cheap, harddrives go bad the fastest, so people are always buying up the surplus ones. It makes it a lot harder to find old stock that hasn't been sold.
So I'd like to consider it separately. Right now we're at $63.
The cheapest harddrive I could find in 4 minutes of searching (about that for the other stuff) was a 20GB 7200 drive for $30 with shipping.
So...we're done at $93.
You might also have to buy an IDE cable. I was just hoping that the harddrive or the motherboard or the CDRom drive came with one.
Using this same procedure, you can probably get a case for about $20. Same low quality. But why bother with such cheap parts? Keep 'em in a shoebox.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Three things. One, you need a buy a broadband adapter for the GC, which puts you over the $100 limit (the article says you need ethernet). Two, you need to buy PSO 1, 2, or 3, which puts over you the limit even more. Finally, you need another computer to actually load gclinux on the gamecube. There's no HD and no has has managed to make a GC disc with Linux on it. So, clearly the GC fails.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h