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Hardware For a Cheap Linux Desktop (phoronix.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Outside of the limelight of Intel's Core "Skylake" processors is the cheapest model, a $60 Intel Pentium G4400 dual-core processor that runs at 3.3Gz and has built-in HD Graphics 510. Ubuntu Linux results for this CPU show the cut-down Skylake graphics are the worst aspect of this budget processor while the CPU performance is okay if speed isn't a big factor and your workloads don't mind the lack of AVX support. To pair with the cheap Skylake Pentium processors are more Intel H110-powered motherboards appearing, with some also retailing for under $60 while being basic yet functional as a severely cutdown version of the Intel Z170 chipset. If pursuing this route for a budget Linux PC, it's possible to build a socketed Skylake system for less than $200.
Those of you who have recently built, or are planning out a new budget Linux machine, what internals do you recommend?
I would run a XEON X5690 (6 core 3.46ghz) with 24GB of RAM and an SSD. You can find entire machines with Quadro video, audio, and a shitload of other components for about $200.00
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
I recently picked up an ECS KAM1-I motherboard ($25) for the AMD AM1 processor ($25 to $50). The motherboard has two serial ports and two serial port headers for four COM ports. I'm planning to build out a Linux console server for my Cisco certification rack. This is cheaper than trying to convert a Cisco router into a terminal server.
Naturally the answers provided here depend on the requirements (oddly enough, even geeks forget to state those)
And why reinvent the wheel? Because Pi and like boards exist is the reason this question has almost become irrelevant. You either need something that can be solved with a "cheap" pre-built board, or you're likely in need of $300 or more in hardware.
Requirements matter. Otherwise, you're just fucking around in the sandbox.
You can get lucky with generic, but I've had too many hard to track down issues over the years that were ultimately caused by buggy main memory chips. Whatever you buy, torture test them first - many tools available. /or don't support all file system functions.
Do the same with the disk - SSD is the way to go, but again do your research since some disk have poor firmware, and
If you aren't going for the top of the line in processing speed, the AMD A-Series will generally get you more processing power for the money than the Intel equivalents.
If you can do with even less graphics power, similar to that of the intel Skylake processors, you could go with the AMD E-Series, but you would see performance loss in graphically intense desktop applications like web browsing and multimedia. If this is tolerable, then go ahead and save the extra money.
As of motherboards, it depends on what you want to do. So long as you don't want overclocking, any of the basic motherboards will do as the advanced voltage regulators really don't give an advantage on low-end processors unless you overclock. However, I'd recommend getting the better chipset if you want USB 3.0 and other features. If not you can go with the basic model.
As of RAM, for an economy machine you want 4GB to 8GB of RAM, and you probably should go ahead and dual-channel the ram if the motherboard supports it, because it will not cost much extra and almost double your RAM access speed.
Nice base system with Pentium G3220:
http://slickdeals.net/f/829851...
...then go to your local surplus depot for a school system, college, or large company and look for their older high-end workstations and workgroup servers and buy those for very little money, then put your drives of choice in. You'll find Xeons oodles of RAM and if it's a computer designed for a workspace (ie, not a rackmount server) it won't even be loud.
As an added bonus, with equipment that's a few years old you're likely to be able to run Linux out of the box because the early adopters already figured out how to get the hardware working properly.
The only computers I continue to purchase new are portable computers. I buy used stuff for the rest, the last dual-quad Xeon with 32GB RAM cost me a couple hundred bucks.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I picked up an Asus Kabini SoC motherboard and quad core CPU for about $100. I installed some RAM I had laying around and used similarly "laying around" hardware to finish it up. It's not a bad machine although the built-in graphics are a bit slow on Linux Mint and Ubuntu Desktop.
This may actually be a good thought. By one of the heavily discounted PCs (black friday/cyber monday) and just reinstall....maybe adding in some extra RAM.
$60 CPU + $60 mobo + $40 case/PSU combo = $160. Add in RAM, HDD/SSD, I/O peripherals, and you're definitely gonna be over $200. Just buy a cheap laptop (chromebooks spring to mind), wipe it and put linux on it. Plus, it'll be a laptop. Maybe the performance won't be quite as good, but it'll definitely be serviceable.
Getting on Intel's latest architecture is a fairly meaningless goal.
I've been building inexpensive PCs with Gigabyte H81 ITX motherboards, LGA1150 Pentium G CPUs, 4GB RAM, 120GB mSATA drives and Rosewill ITX chassis. I can build a whole machine for around $250. The chassis will still have room for an optical drive and a pair of hard disks, should you want them.
I specifically like the Gigabyte board for having both mSATA and mini-PCIe slots, plus the cutout to add antennas for 802.11/bluetooth. There's just a lot of flexibility for an ITX machine.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Heck, why not the Raspberry Pi Zero? It's even cheaper ($5!) and doesn't have all those GPIO pins wasting all that board space... Sadly, no built-in Ethernet, but Options abound in the USB Ethernet adapter space...
Ken
I have Linux Mint 17 running on a MUCH lower spec 6 year old Acer Netbook, 2GB of RAM. It's hardly a screamer, but I can get work done, stream video, etc. So I can't understand why your system doesn't do better.
The Pi Zero has Zero network connectivity. No ethernet, no WiFi. Single USB port. By the time you take care of that, you exceed the cost of the Pi2. Just get a Pi2 and avoid the Zero.
what parent said - use case is important. but be honest with yourself. a year ago, i spent a LOT of money on a dream desktop (think 64GB ram + 2x 8Gb FC + 2x 4port NICs + many fancy features). yet now i spend 95% of my computing time on a raspberry pi because all i really NEED are 4 terminal windows (music + IRC + xmpp client for nagios alerts + ssh to work on a server) and a web browser.
why don't i do it on my fancy desktop? because i don't want to feel like i'm murdering the planet for no reason. i have no guilty conscience when i forget to switch off my raspberry pi for a week and it honestly covers 95% of my use cases.
My Mint 17.2 XFCE is running quite well on my old netbook, Atom N270 (o/c to 2.0GHz), 3GB RAM and an Nvidia ION GPU, it can easily decode 1080p video using the GPU, even play some old 3D games. Coding/compiling small project is a breeze. Chrome+reddit+RES is somewhat slow sometimes.
I even installed Win10 build 1511 on a partition, and I am impressed it is this quite fast.
You can find this netbook for less than $100.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
I have a 14 drive NAS box based on an old AMD board with 8 sata ports on board and I combine that with a cheap highpoint sas controller to add 8 more ports...
Get a cheap Chromebook or Chromebox, disable security and install Linux. Since its a chromebook/box Linux drivers should not be a problem. We've been successful with those for a few odd linux boxes that we needed at work.