[techtalk] Would like advice on building system

Laurel Fan lf25+ at andrew.cmu.edu
Tue Oct 19 18:53:14 EST 1999


Excerpts from linuxchix: 19-Oct-99 [techtalk] Would like advic.. by
Cathy James at opensite.com 
>         I'd like advice on a recommended motherboard.  I'd also
> like to know if anyone else has had issues with LBA on really 
> large disks.  I was never able to get either BootMagic or LILO 
> to work properly on my husband's HP PC, even with both boot 
> partitions completely below cylinder 1024.

Nothing specific, but try to get 1 or 2 ISA slots, in case you want an
internal modem.  Older kernels have issues with disks >8GB.  I think
anything 2.2.x is fine.
 
>         I'm thinking in terms of a K6-II450 or thereabouts, 128M PC100 RAM,
> and reasonably fast CD-ROM running both KDE and Gnome/Enlightenment.
> I can reuse an old monitor, floppy drive, and keyboard.
>  
>         Also, what prices can I expected for inexpensive Ethernet
> cards? I'd like to eventually network this machine with my husband's,
> and configure the 486 I'm replacing to server as an 
> Internet firewall/server.

The lowest price I see listed on pricewatch.com is $6.  I don't think
you want that one, however...
  
>         Is it realistic to expect to build a nice system for $1200 or so?
> I'm not thrilled at what has happened to memory prices recently, but what
> can you do...

Yes.  A few months ago, I got a Dell P3/500 with 128M of RAM, cdrom, 13G
hd,  and an excessively nice monitor and video card for $2100.


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