Re: Questions regarding hardware for a Free Software (especially Debian)
On 2009-12-13 22:37 +0100, Rogério Brito wrote:
> I would like to purchase a new system to replace my current Desktop.
>
> Unfortunately, it seems that getting some new hardware is not as easy, due to a
> multitude of unavailable drivers for Free Operating systems or differences
> regarding the role of the systems.
>
> It seems that most sites where hardware is discussed (say, slashdot,
> tomshardware, arstechnica and similars) as well as vendor sites (e.g., Asus, MSI
> etc) seem to aim at the "Gamer" person.
This is probably due to the fact that games are the most demanding
software nowadays. I.e. if you don't want to run games there should be
few problems, because any modern system will run other software without
big performance problems.
> I was reading some reviews and I am confused regarding getting a new Desktop and
> I would sincerely appreciate some help.
>
> I did a bit of homework, and some of my choices seem to be hard to satisfy, but
> they seem to be quite mundane (at least, I would be lead to think so):
>
> * I would like to have a moderately powerful CPU (regardless of manufacturer).
> Perhaps a 4-core to use as a build constantly programs (I am a Maintainer of
> some packages in Debian and I would like to take action on some big packages and
> do some QA work).
Then there are only two questions: how much money do you have to spend,
and how important is a quiet system to you? If all four cores of a
quadcore system are busy, the resulting heat is almost impossible to
dissipate without noise.
> * Besides the CPU, I would like to have a reasonable amount of memory (perhaps
> 8GB of memory). Again, no preferred brands here.
Unless you want to run multiple virtual machines, 8 GB are probably
overkill. It might be better to only buy 4 GB and invest the money in a
faster CPU, or even in an SSD.
> * I have no need for dual graphics cards or anything fancy. I video necessities
> are, at most, playing a video and nothing much. I use fluxbox as my Window
> Manager and I don't see me changing it in the future.
>
> What all this means is that I am more inclined to take money from a fast
> graphics card and put it in a CPU (I saw that some video cards are *really*
> expensive!).
You want to buy a very cheap card or even use onboard graphics.
> * I prefer to assemble the system myself (since this is the cheaper route), but
> as the last system that I built was in 1999, I'm not that up-to-date with the
> newer technologies. I have no fear of learning things, though.
>
> * And, finally, but very important, something that is fully supported by Free
> Software only. I want to get a system where I can run Debian with Linux as a
> kernel and, it would be fantastically nice if it could, work acceptably with
> Debian with the FreeBSD kernel.
Be sure to avoid Nvidia graphics cards then. The best bet is probably to use
Intel graphics, *except* GMA500¹. Thanks to KMS², switching from X to a
virtual console and back is as fast as switching workspaces, and
resuming/suspending works without a hitch on my laptop.
Good luck,
Sven
¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA
² http://wiki.debian.org/KernelModesetting
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