Building 2011's Sub-$200 Computer

adeelarshad82 links to PC Magazine's recent account (updating a similar quest detailed last year) "to see if a decent PC could put together for less than $200. Turns out that between some great deals, an AMD processor, and a Linux OS, it can actually be done." They actually come out with a decent-enough system for that money — but omitting an optical drive in a full-size desktop computer build seems something like cheating.

Comments

Re:Decent Computer?

[hairyfeet]

For everyone else go to any Craigslist and you'll find plenty of dirt cheap machines with good XP CALs on them. Hell if you want Win 7 just contact any family or friends that are in college and you can get Win 7 pro for a whole $35. No friends in college? Chip in with a couple of buds on a $100 family pack, that is three installs of Win 7 HP, which comes to $33-$37 a piece depending on the sale price. Then you can enjoy the literally millions of programs out there in the vast ecosystem many of which have no Linux equivalent and most likely never will have, unless all you want are text editors or IDEs.

Look I like Linux, I really do. As a retailer I'd love the fuck out of a working Linux distro as I could undercut by competition by not having to pay for Windows. but as long as Linus Torvalds is in charge Linux is royally fucked as he has stated he will NEVER allow a stable hardware ABI, which means drivers will ALWAYS be fiddly bastards, with one thing being fixed while two break, for the life of the OS. I mean here,read for yourself what the man says and then be honest: How many of you if given an employee on a multibillion dollar project that said "Plans? We don't neeed no steenkin plans!" wouldn't fire his ass. Be honest.

What Linux needs is a Jobs or Gates to walk in there and lay the holy smack down on Torvalds and his itch scratchers and tell them "enough is enough". There is a simple list of hardware which SHOULD NEVER FAIL which I call the "80%", that is the hardware that is found on more than 80% of the bog standard machines out there. that is Intel, AMD/ATI, and Nvidia GPUs, Realtek HD and AC97 sound, Realtek , Nvidia and Intel Ethernet, Intel and Broadcom wireless. THESE SHOULD NEVER FAIL and if they do? YOU SUCK ASS AND SHOULD BE ASHAMED TO RELEASE BROKEN SHIT.

Yet every single time I try Linux, and I've tried a shitload of distros, Ubuntu/Mint, PCLOS, Mepis, Fedora, Puppy, hell if it was supposedly "user friendly" I tried it and not fucking once did the above hardware survrive a single upgrade unscathed. now since we are talking on average 6 month release schedules? Gentlemen that is simply unacceptable. And before someone says LTS! I'd just point out currently XP has longer support, and Windows 7 is supported until 2020 and that is if they don't release anymore service packs.

The clock is ticking hard Linux geeks, in 2014 hundreds of millions of XP boxes go EOL and if you can get retailers like me onboard? Then YOUR OS can have those machines. Imagine how quickly Linux adoption could jump if every mom&pop shop like mine had Linux laptops and desktops lining the shelves, all at affordable prices. it would be incredible. but gentlemen my time is $35 an hour, which means ALL IT TAKES is one of those 80% being borked on the 6 month deathmarch and my profits go right out the window. The simple fact is with the on average hour to two hours it takes to do the forum dance, find the CLI crap, load the CLI crap, find out I have to tweak the CLI crap, tweak the CLI crap, and then finally get the damned hardware working again? I've just blown the cost of Windows 7 HP right there.

ACCEPT THIS...the world is NOT LIKE YOU and they will NEVER adopt CLI, nor do forum dances or deal with borked drivers every 6 months. FIX THIS and you have a shot of gaining HUGE share in 2014. Continue on the current path of shitting on users and expecting them to jump on the neckbeard bandwagon? And then guys like me will simply strip or dump all those XP boxes and you won't gain shit. if the fact that an OS that has a $1000 barrier to entry gained when Vista hit and you didn't gain shit don't smack you with the clue bat I don't know what will.

Re:Decent Computer?

[hairyfeet]

Don't forget wireless which still royally sucks the big wet titty on Linux. More and more of my customers are giving up running wires in their homes and simply buying a cheap wireless card for any new PC they add and if you've ever dealt with Linux wireless you know your ass better damned well be fucking great at forum hunts and terminal bullshit if you want it to work.

Oh BTW they're whole plan basically sucks. you don't ever buy parts separably, that is where you get a big old bite out of your ass. you buy a barebone kit like this one which gives you a black edition CPU PLUS a DVD burner for the same price after $30 MIR. Hell if you throw in a few more bucks you can go triple core with TB drive and no MIR.

If you keep an eye out on the sales you can frankly get a truly awesome PC fully loaded with Windows 7 for less than $500. I just finished up an Athlon X4, 4Gb of RAM, 500Gb HDD, an HD4830 for transcoding and gaming, and Win 7 HP X64 with a nice case to put it in all for $465 and that is after paying me to put the thing together and load all the software. hell when he gets his MIR that price will drop to just $435 and that is for a machine that will easily last him until Win 7 is EOL in 2020. He has it plugged into a 32 inch 1080p and frankly it gets great performance, smooth video, plenty of space for his music, just all around a really nice experience.

So I'd say it comes down to what you want to do. if you are a neckbeard that just wants something to run his term and IDE? Sure Linux works fine there, works great as a server OS or for embedded too. If you want to actually be able to just "plug and play" and not have to research like it is the fricking SATs, only to end up having to play hardware roulette and end up possibly with worthless hardware? Or easily run all the software that comes with your stuff? Then I'd suggest sticking with Windows.