RE: [opensuse] Good fast PC and printer in the UK?

Fergus Wilde [mailto:fwilde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] wondered:

Hello Peeps,

Another dull query about hardware recommendations. I need to put a
non-technical person onto a fast and comfy (and this means it
can be quite
expensive) Linux-only desktop PC that's going to route other
pcs in the house
(including wireless) through to a cable internet box, and
onto a decent
colour laser that is known to perform well with Linux. It needs to be
available in the UK, too.

Any thoughts?

In the spirit of chiming in without having anything useful to say...

I'm just curious why you'd want to do that.
I mean, why not just get a dedicated wired-and-wireless router
to connect between everybody and the cable modem?

Cost a few bob (heckuvalot less than a modern, powerful
general-purpose PC) and should be rock-solid reliable and need
next-to-no config.

If extra wired ports are needed, add a hub or two. Again,
very basic and cheap.

Some small routers also have a dedicated printer connection
for sharing one or more printers with your networked PCs...
meaning yet another task you wouldn't need to set up on a
computer.

If the routing function absolutely must be accomplished via
Linux, well some routers already use embedded Linux, and
some can have Linux (and the routing/firewall/etc. features)
loaded in place of the native router OS.

I realize that some people like to use an _old_ computer
with Linux to perform routing duties, but that's because:
a) they've got it lying around, good for little else,
b) the routing is a non-demanding task for old hardware
c) they like the hobby aspect of configuring it with Linux.

But why use a new, powerful computer for that?
If you have other tasks for the computer, that really make
use of it's power, you might encounter software problems
or update issues that might take down that computer on
occasion... during which time your routing function goes
away for the entire building.

The dedicated hardware, on the other hand, does the routing
job well and does nothing else, all day every day -- and so
much less expensively.

Again, just curious. There must have been other parameters
not mentioned in your query.

Kevin

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