Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Build a $150 Linux PC

howto.wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 18 posts

Re: Build a $150 Linux PC

#2

Post by skarab »

That's an interesting approach to building a machine. I haven't built my own box in some years now, but I'm curious if the savings involved are still worth it?

Idea: Aggregate compatible configurations and prices/coupons to yield "complete system" pricing.

Re: Build a $150 Linux PC

#4

Post by jws »

Fun (for a certain definition of fun) and economical, but not what you want to do if you need to PC to work every day when you sit down at it.

PC power supplies, in general, are ticking time bombs the day you buy one. Buying a used one just ensures your PC fails even sooner.

Used third party ram makes me queasy too. It is a good price, but consider that at the RAM factory the lots go through statistical process control, lots rejected at that point still contain mostly passable chips which are probably sold at a lower price to the third party RAM suppliers. But there is something about the lot that isn't quite right.

There was a time around 2000 that whenever a Mac user called me with a flakey machine I used to say "Take out the extra third party ram you bought cheap two years ago when you bought the machine." A near 100% fix rate without having to ask any questions. It would work fine for months or years then start flaking out. I don't need that in any machine for which I'm responsible.

One of our departments is building its own machines from low priced components to save money. I think by any measure, the time it takes to find and remove the flakey ram modules and replace the disk drives that start having bad sectors 3 months into service has more than offset the cost savings.

Re: Build a $150 Linux PC

#5

Post by PStamatiou »

I hate to nitpick but I wrote a very similar series of how to posts detailing pretty much the same thing, with the same motherboard, a few months ago:

http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/01/25/diy-200-dollar-pc http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/02/01/diy-200-dollar-pc-part-2 http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/02/09/diy-200-dollar-pc-part-3

Re: Build a $150 Linux PC

#6

Post by dangoldin »

skarab wrote: post #2

That's an interesting approach to building a machine. I haven't built my own box in some years now, but I'm curious if the savings involved are still worth it? Idea: Aggregate compatible configurations and prices/coupons to yield "complete system" pricing.

fatwallet.com does a lot of that. I used to spend a good amount of time on their "Hot Deals" forum.

Re: Build a $150 Linux PC

#7

Post by ajross »

jws wrote: post #4

Fun (for a certain definition of fun) and economical, but not what you want to do if you need to PC to work every day when you sit down at it. PC power supplies, in general, are ticking time bombs the day you buy one. Buying a used one just ensures your PC fails even sooner. Used third party ram makes me queasy too. It is a good price, but consider that at the RAM factory the lots go through statistical process contr…

I'm not sure I buy all of those arguments. Power supplies (cheap ones, anyway) are, indeed, of pretty mixed quality. But their failure rates show (in my experience, anyway) a distinct "bathtub curve", essentially failing within the first few months or not for several years. For a part like that, a used one can actually be more reliable than a new one, because you're essentially getting the "burn-in" for free.

And while, again, it's true that off-brand memory has higher error rates than premium stuff (which, generally, is coming out of the same fabs but testing at higher tolerances), the error rate is (1) still very low, I've only seen one bad DIMM over the last 10 years or so, and (2) trivially easy to test with memtest86. Got a bad stick? Yeah, it sucks, but you just replace it (for $20 or whatever) and move on. It's not a reason to triple your memory cost, IMHO.

And disk drives, in my experience, simply don't have a premium/bargain distinction in quality at all. Instead, these things fail in batches. Some 4500 RPM clearance models will churn for years, while some models of 15k RPM SAS monsters like give up the ghost within a few months. You can't win with drives.

Re: Build a $150 Linux PC

#9

Post by BrandonM »

A PC like that mentioned in the article should be free. A 533 MHz Celeron, 512 MB of ram, 80 GB hard drive? Don't you have any family? I know of several old computers meeting or exceeding those specs that various acquaintances have sitting around.

Personally, I would spend another $150-200 and get a processor that was top-of-the-line a couple years ago (instead of nearly a decade ago), faster/more RAM (512 MB is solid for Linux, but with 1 GB you'll never have to worry about it), and a faster (if not bigger) hard drive.

In my opinion, advertising a crappy $150 PC is almost a disservice to the build-your-own crowd, when you could get a similar-quality one for free from someone you know or for cheaper from a used computer store. Noting that you can build a very solid computer for $300-400, though, is really something.

Post reply on HN