Hardware
So after about 3 years or so of trying to put aside some money and save for a new computer we've actually got enough spare. (Things kept coming up, like weddings and house and moving)
The only complication seems to be my Linux addiction. Finding hardware that actually works reliably with linux appears to be something of a lucky dip.
My google-fu has failed me in this respect. Searching for specific motherboards gave me mixed reviews with some people reporting horrible problems and others with everything working fine.
There don't appear to be any reliable trends with manufacturers either. Sometimes a company who made great stuff last year brings out something which just fails to be properly supported or plan sucks. Sometimes a company who makes things that never work right suddenly start supporting Linux.
After settling on something that looked like it would work I put in the order. Out of stock. So after some quick searching and a couple of attempts I've got another motherboard and a system ready to pick up.
And it looks like the sound is a bit dodgy but I couldn't find any on board sound that seemed to work reliably in reviews at all so no much could be done there, just wait and see.
And I now find that I really should have looked more into the network hardware (I foolishly thought that was pretty mature and stable, aparently not, still plenty of dodgy companies making weird new versions of what should be a really straightforward chip. Sigh. Mine appears to be one that is both old and still not supported by the standard kernel, bugger.
So I'm downloading a Ubuntu ISO and anticipating a long and frustrating day trying to get things working tomorrow.
Sigh. Oh well, exciting learning curve ahead.
The only complication seems to be my Linux addiction. Finding hardware that actually works reliably with linux appears to be something of a lucky dip.
My google-fu has failed me in this respect. Searching for specific motherboards gave me mixed reviews with some people reporting horrible problems and others with everything working fine.
There don't appear to be any reliable trends with manufacturers either. Sometimes a company who made great stuff last year brings out something which just fails to be properly supported or plan sucks. Sometimes a company who makes things that never work right suddenly start supporting Linux.
After settling on something that looked like it would work I put in the order. Out of stock. So after some quick searching and a couple of attempts I've got another motherboard and a system ready to pick up.
And it looks like the sound is a bit dodgy but I couldn't find any on board sound that seemed to work reliably in reviews at all so no much could be done there, just wait and see.
And I now find that I really should have looked more into the network hardware (I foolishly thought that was pretty mature and stable, aparently not, still plenty of dodgy companies making weird new versions of what should be a really straightforward chip. Sigh. Mine appears to be one that is both old and still not supported by the standard kernel, bugger.
So I'm downloading a Ubuntu ISO and anticipating a long and frustrating day trying to get things working tomorrow.
Sigh. Oh well, exciting learning curve ahead.