[nflug] where to get hardware locally (& how to upgrade hardware I do have)

[David J. Andruczyk]

Contact pete (cybersource.us) . he's the local linux friendly
computer hardware seller on the forums and the local mythTV whiz as
well.

He's on here all the time and will prolly reply to your message.


--- Steve Petersen <business at stevepetersen.net> wrote:

> Hi NFLUG!
> 
> I recently moved to Buffalo - I teach philosophy at Niagara
> University.
> I've been using linux for about seven or eight years, first
> RedHat, and now
> more recently Ubuntu/Xubuntu.  I'm still a novice when it comes
> to
> understanding many *nix things, though; for example, I've never
> manually
> recompiled the kernel.  I'm mainly in it for the ideological
> reasons, the
> command line, and for the occasional tinkering under the hood.
> 
> First, thanks for what looks like an active and helpful
> community!
> 
> My current problem:  I have an "old" computer in my office (I
> think it's a
> 750 MHz AMD chip, 250M RAM).  It's running Xubuntu 6.06, and even
> that
> lightweight OS is proving too taxing for it.  I think it's all
> the tabbed
> browsing in firefox I do ... I want firefox though, for all the
> awesome
> plugins (like adblock and scrapbook).
> 
> Anyway I'd like to upgrade / buy a new computer.  So I wonder two
> things:
> 1. where you might recommend cheap, good computer parts locally. 
> I live
> near North & Elmwood in Allentown.  I also wonder 2.  what might
> be the best
> way to upgrade.  I know how to scavenge hard drives, power
> supplies, CDROM
> drives etc pretty well - I just get nervous when it comes to
> mixing &
> matching chips, motherboards, RAM, and the like.  I don't
> understand
> intercompatibility isuses there well at all.  In the past I would
> just buy a
> new case, motherboard, chip and RAM as a compatible set from a
> store, and
> then plug in old hard drives, CDROMS, and peripherals.  But I'd
> like to
> learn yet-more economical ways, if worth the time.
> 
> My office tasks tend to be firefox, emacs, latex, acroread,
> thunderbird,
> gnumeric, unison, and some mp3-playing in Xubuntu's lightweight
> xfmedia.
> Sometimes OpenOffice, ideally.   Do you think just buying more
> RAM will be
> enough?  (Are they likely still to sell the kind I need?)  Do I
> need to
> upgrade the chip, you think?  And does that mean the motherboard
> too?  How
> can I be sure the motherboard will seat in the case well?  Is it
> worth
> learning to replace chips?  How can I tell the wattage of powef
> supply and
> fanspeeds I need?  And so on.
> 
> Any thoughts / helpful links / anecdotes are appreciated; tia.
> 
> Steve
> -- 
> 
> http://stevepetersen.net
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> nflug at nflug.org
> http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
> 


-- David J. Andruczyk


 
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