Re: on the verge of shopping for new desktop hardware, recommendations?
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On Saturday, March 6, 2021 9:59 PM, Dan Hitt <dan.hitt@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that i will need to get new desktop hardware, so i'm trying to figure out what to do.
>
> When i got my last hardware, one challenge was UEFI booting, iirc. After dealing with it, i sort of lost track of what was happening in that arena. However, i don't want to get involved with that again.
>
> I'm sort of thinking about getting a Dell Inspiron but maybe i should buy from a linux vendor instead, such as 76? Presumably at least in that case at least i wouldn't have to worry about the bios.
>
> I certainly would want to get something which supported 2 or 3 internal disks, but i would also like to get something that could be booted from an external usb drive. Does that make sense?
>
> Would it make sense to look for something where all usb ports are usb 3.0? I've never used usb 3.0 at home, so i'm kind of unclued.
>
> In a way, i'd like to have something with 2 ethernet ports on the motherboard, although i've found that usb-to-ethernet is adequate for my purposes.
>
> And i think i'd like to stick with debian, but i would consider any free OS. (So if i bought a Dell, i would add a disk drive or two, and boot off the debian disk, probably removing the windows disk.)
>
> I'd appreciate any pointers or recommendations.
Over the past 20 or so years, I've had great luck with the bottom-of-the-line tower type Dell servers -- they've been on the 'Net 24/7, and I've never had one fail. Obsoleted, sure. And disk failures from time to time (but that's what RAID1 is for).
And Dell will sell the servers with no Windows OS on the disks, so you don't have to DBAN them to get the Microsoft bits out of your computer. The one in front of me right now is a Supermicro workstation. The Dells have been Internet servers, and the Supermicro is better for my desk because it's easier to futz with.
All of my current boxes are pretty old, and they all have vanilla BIOSes. I have a Dell laptop that came with a UEFI BIOS, and it was no fun at all getting it to run Debian -- it may still be misconfigured for all I know. Looking for a genuine BIOS might be worth the trouble.
All of the above (except the laptop) have multiple internal disks -- 2 in the Dells, 4 in the Supermicro.
USB3 is a good thing. But if you don't need high USB bandwidth, USB2 still works. USB3, though, has a significantly higher power output.
The Supermicro has two motherboard Ethernets; the Dells, one.
On all of them, I've loaded up with disks and installed from a Debian netInstall CD.
A blast from the past, but I hope it's of some use.
--
Glenn English
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