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

[Cyber Source]

Steve Petersen 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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>   
Thanks for the chime Dave!
Steve,
  We got tons of old and new stuff here and if we don't have it we can
get it. Shoot me an email or give me a call 553-8525. Thanks, Peter
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