new system shaping up

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Thanks Frankie -


On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Frank J. Carmickle wrote:

> Hi Chuck
> 
> On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> > I am springing for a new system with a 600 MHz Athlon processor and 64 MB
> 
> I would highly recommend 128 mb of ram.  You will not regret it.
> 
> > ram, an SBlive sound card, two 8GB hard drives, a 56K external modem, and
> > a NEC read/write CD drive all for under $1000 from folks I trust and have
> > worked with for several years. Two loose ends I could use some feedback
> > on:
> 
> Good stick with the good guys.
> 
> > The proposed video card is an "elsa" system. Anybody know if that is a
> > problem down the road? I have no clear need for video display right now,
> > but no point selecting a system with known problems.
> 
> Unlike windows and there bad news screen readers, you don't need to worry
> about video card incompatibilities.  Unless you want to do cool things,
> like watch tv on the console, I would just buy a cheep card.  An s3 would
> do the trick.  I like using the frame buffer device.  It's nice to have
> tux come up on the screen when the kernel boots.  The ati rage 128, the
> matrox g200 and g400, s3 cards with a kernel patch, and the permedia2
> cards will support this.  Most of us blinks probably don't care about it
> but I use my computer as my tv.  It's kind of nice to have a tv around for
> friends to watch.
> 
> > Second, the CD-ROM is a NEC 
> device - anybody have any information of a
> > go-nogo nature on that choice? I think I just got religion when it comes
> > to backup policy, and a CD drive with write capability is important in
> > this new system.
> 
> I wouldn't recommend a nec cd burner.  Infact I have never heard a thing
> about them.  I would buy either the plextor or a yamaha.  It's not worth
> the hassle of trying to get something nonstandard to work.  Kerry correcto
> me if I am wrong but I have never seen nec's on the supported list of
> drives for cdrdao or cdrecord.  The plextor's and the yamaha's are
> reliable drives.  They aren't that expensive either.  I know some people
> who have never had problems with the hp's also.
> 
> Hope this helped.
> Frank
> 
> 
> 

My web site is http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh 
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