edgarde's Journal: fancying a new computer

So I'm pretty fried and wanna take a coupla weeks vacation, late Jan or early Feb. I'm thinking this would be a good time to put together a new PC. Whatever else it'll be, it'll be Microsoft-free, and have Linux. Tho technically incompetent, I am a zealot.

My old motherboard died a few months ago, probably from flood damage occurring many months prior. It was an AMD 400Mhz job with a pre-ATX case; I'd like to replace it with something spiffy & modern, moving the old floppy & hard drives, but little else. This leads me to all kinds of indecision.

Here are some computers I could use:

• A little computer to play with, mostly for music playback and web-surfing, with some programming practice. GUI all the time. Might be serving TV/quasi-Tivo duties if I get crafty enough.
• A central file server containing (minimally) all my music files. I have a 3Ware IDE RAID card waiting for this purpose, but not the drives. I have 200GB of music files (most Vorbis @ q6, mostly ripped from albums I own) squirrelled away on various hard drives, plus when this gets going I'd like to host some Shorten online for some deprived comrades. I also intend to run some PostgreSQL experiments. Even with the database, this could be a pretty low-powered machine.
• One for Mom, who probably just needs a new modem, so this computer probably won't get made. I'm only thinking of her machine cos I'd like something I could remote adminstrate -- she has no one to help her when it goes wrong. She's probably better off staying in Windows, however -- it's all she's ever known and she's not eager to learn new compu-stuff. Also she uses the GUI client for Juno's free mail (which I've only seen it briefly and could use more info on). Wish I could get her something like WebTV and be done with it, but she needs a printer, and besides WebTV is now MSN-TV (and must die).

So here are the computers that turn my head, not necessarily fitting the above slots:

• Just any nice big case plus 4 120GB drives for the music server. This is already more $$ than I wanna spend at the moment, but it would become my primary all-purpose computer for at least a year, then turn into a general file server. My tendency is to then wanna over-specify it with dual-Athlon, SCSI, and the like -- a fun and pointless way for me to spend lots of money. How can I afford this? Can't really. What use is all this CPU power? I don't even game. None really. It's like wanting a really mammoth penis -- you crave it, you're fascinated by it, but once you get this thing it just hurts.
• An Apple! I've not compared, but I'm told Terrasoft Apples configured to dual boot into Yellow Dog are no more expensive than regular 'pples, so I'd probably head there. Probably an iMac, preferably with a 17" screen (tho I see none available at Terrasoft). A technically challenged friend of mine uses an iBook, so increasing my familiarity with Macs would help her in the long run.
• A Shuttle Mini. I lean toward this cos it's so cute, and I want a computer I can love, albeit for superficial reasons. Obviously these leave me with little flexibility for unforeseen future expansion, but it's supposed to be unobtrusive & easy to move, something to tuck away wherever, so future expansion is contrary to its mission.

full of warm fuzzy bits.

[cb900crdr]

Here are a couple of recommendations. I'll start generic and then get specific. First off, to stay zealous I'd recommend an AMD processor for three reasons: avoiding the WINTEL monopoly, using a more efficient processor and keeping more money in your wallet. To stay fast I'd use DDR333 memory or faster. I've seen too many systems that should be fast that weren't only to see that they used PC133 SDRAM. Ugh.

Having said that, I am very happy with my ASUS A7V333 [asus.com], with an Athlon XP 2000+ and 512MB of DDR333 RAM from Crucial [crucial.com]. It's a fast system without breaking the bank.

With that as your backbone you can run anything you want on it. Throw in an ATI [ati.com]:AIW and you can easily do TiVo functionality, and have it be your file server.

I agree about the Shuttle Mini [anandtech.com]. I love it, I'm just trying to justify a reason to buy it. I may just buy it to make one and send to my sister. She may get jealous when my Mom gets hers.

Best of luck with whatever you decide. Let me know what you build.

Re:full of warm fuzzy bits.

[edgarde]

... I'd recommend an AMD processor for three reasons: avoiding the WINTEL monopoly, using a more efficient processor and keeping more money in your wallet.

It's a safe bet I'll be using an Athlon. All the machines we build for the office (actually, Carmen builds) are AMD processors on Athon motherboards.

Having said that, I am very happy with my ASUS

A7V333 [asus.com], with an Athlon XP 2000+ and 512MB of DDR333 RAM from Crucial [crucial.com] [crucial.com]. It's a fast system without breaking the bank.

Crucial sent me some duff server RAM once, so I give all that business to Mushkin [mushkin.com], whose phone support staff seem to be waiting for me to ask what kinda RAM I could use. Very helpful.

With that as your backbone you can run anything you want on it. Throw in an

ATI [ati.com]:AIW and you can easily do TiVo functionality, and have it be your file server.

I had one of these on a Windows machine and liked it plenty. Do you think it has decent Linux support? I was thinking of Matrox [matrox.com].

Let me know what you build.

I'll try to post all the embarassing details.