Re: New computer?

From: Kevin & Theresa Miller (atftb_at_alaska.net)
Date: 10/04/03 

Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 18:03:57 GMT

abnhqx@lvpdoe.com wrote:

> Better work out the offerings available and the cost first. From what
> I've read the technology is still on the uptake curve and naturally
> early adopters pay a price. Unless you are doing heavy duty serving or
> databases or number crunching, it's unlikely you will feel the benefit
> of a 64-bit memory space. Also not all software has been made to take
> advantage of the bigger space. There are a number of hardware reviews
> out there, a google should find them.

Thanks. All good points. I thing the Athlon has been out a while so I don't
anticipate any real problems there. Since it'll run the 32 bit apps as well I
figure it'll just be more flexible for the future. I don't upgrade hardware
often - stumbled along with my original 386 for 8 or 9 years! (That was some
time ago, BTW)

I guess it comes down to how good a job SuSE did. Here's hoping. I've been
looking around at bare-bones kits, individual components, and cheap units.
Stumbled across this:

http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=eMachines_T2865

Has about everything I want, except firewire. I can always add that in. Of
course, I'd be stuck paying the "Microsoft Tax" but I don't have to ever boot
into XP.

Anybody have experience w/emachines? Recommendations/horror stories?

Another poster mentioned some issues w/Nvidia cards, but there's an AGP slot, so
if I have trouble there I can add in a different video card later. Same w/the
sound. It's built in, but a new card isn't hard.

> |I have a number of old LPs too, which it would be nice to capture, then burn to
> |a CD. Linux Journal has an article on doing this, but I'm not sure what
> |additional soundcard features I might need. Maybe a stock soundcard is all
> |that's required?
>
> Just a good soundcard, the quality of the capture depends on the
> soundcard. I used a SB5.1 and it's ok for me, the quality is probably
> better than the LPs. Audiophiles may be more picky.

Sound's built in but a new card isn't hard if I need better. Looked at the
Hauppauge video capture cards too. Kinda nice - they'll come as PCI cards or
external units that'll slide into a USB or Firewire port.

> One thing I'm looking forward to is the low-latency kernels in 2.6 and
> maybe the backported SuSE 2.4s. I found that my sound capture loses
> samples if anything else intensive is done, like a large network copy.

Yeah - some time back Linux Journal had a write up on some of that stuff. A lot
of it went right by me, but it sounds smokin'! Nothing like a unit that gets it
done 5 seconds before you ask...

...Kevin 

-- 
Kevin & Theresa Miller
Juneau, Alaska
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb

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