Basic Linux Machine

[Churnd]

I've always wanted to test my building skills on computers, so this is a perfect opportunity. I want to build a bare-basic tower with just the essentials to run an all the latest Linux distros out there. I'm looking for a few baseline requirements to build this machine as cheaply as possible. I'm gonna try to keep it around $200, b/c I've already got a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. So I'm looking for a cheap, but good mobo, case, processor, cd/rw drive, floppy, hard drive... just the bare basics. Just need to know the min reqs for all the current distros so I can try a few.

Also, if any of you have an old tower lying around that has at least a newer PIII or older P4, let me know... I'm interested!!!

 

[TheGreenGoblin]

You can run linux on a Pentium 100 or slower. Any brand new pc will be able to run a linux distro with no difficulty.

Hardware requirements only come in to play if the Linux machine in question is actually being used for something stressful (usually in a corporate environment).

I'd look into driver support for the hardware you're considering buying.

The best budget system right now is probably a Sempron and an Nforce2 Socket A motherboard.

 

[Churnd]

What's the minimum KDE needs to run well? I'm talking about from the basic command line interface to the full blown KDE environment. I'm going to be using it all.

 

[Cerb]

A 1GHz+ Athlon will do quite well, even with transparency and such turned on.
As with Windows, give it half a gig of RAM and a decent HDD, and your desktop needs should be met.

You can't do $200 with new parts...simply because you can't. You can make it under $400, and probably match $300 (but the extra $ would be worthwhile for nice hardware), but not meet $200.

 

[mcveigh]

http://www.geeks.com/details.a...MNVPIII1000-4B&cat=SYS
add some more ram

 

[Sunner]

Turn off a bunch of eyecandy and KDE will run smoothly on anything even halfdecent.
Ran fine on my old P-iii 866 MHz box.

Just make sure you have sufficient RAM for whatever you'll be doing.

 

[Cerb]

mcveigh: not bad, and it has an AGP slot (I just went and checked on a real one with an AGP card in it ).
For a nice PCI/AGP used cheap card for Linux use, get a Voodoo3. Excellent 2d quality, and it will just plain work with any distor out there. PCI would be handy, as there would ne no need to worry about AGP 4/8x boards.
Also, look at Retrobox.com for cheap used PCs ($27 shipping on all PCs, you get a KB, mouse and power cord, too, whether you need another one or not).
Or--crap: http://www.geeks.com/details.a...d=G45MDHA16D-R&cat=VCD
One left, awesome price.

 

[jose]

You can use this as a reference, anything faster will work. BTW used this config as an email server/samba/proxy/firewall + scsi drives, worked great.

P3-800, w/ 512mb ram, voodoo3 or GF2, cdrom & 20gig hd...

Regards,
Jose

 

[Churnd]

I figured my main req would be a lot of RAM. I'm also gonna search around eBay and see what kinda older system I can dig up. Thanks for the bare basic recommendations, guys! Keep em coming...