[1157] in NetBSD-Development
Another PC
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Charles_Frankston@charlesview.com)
Fri Dec 15 20:17:18 1995
From: Charles_Frankston@charlesview.com
To: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
To: netbsd-dev@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 20:15 -0500
kcr: Some time ago we talked about bying another PC to possibly be a
Linux build engine. Greg and I did some research and it
looks like it'll cost about $2700 for a pentium 100 with
16meg memory, 1gig ide hard drive, 17" monitor, and
everything else you'd want [for a PC to function].
jered: From where?
kcr: Dell Dimension. The person I talked to at Dell today seemed to
be not very knowledgable, so I don't have harder numbers.
As usual, if the SIPB's going to get a PC, I have a few recommendations.
The Dell Dimension XPS is not a bad choice, but they're running really slow
on delivery right now. Keep this in mind.
1. I would get a larger hard drive than 1Gb. The incremental cost is small,
and it might prevent people from re-using partitions so much. You can order
a 2Gb IDE hard drive from Dell now (although not necessarily on the P100t
configuration, in which case 1.6Gb is the largest available. This of course
is purely arbitrary on Dell's part).
2. I would not necessarily get the bundled Dell monitor. Find out how much
credit you get for ordering the bundle without the monitor. We've been
buying Samsung 17GLi monitors lately -- very nice flat 17" screen, on screen
controls, etc. for aboutg $709.
3. Think about whether a sound card is desirable. I presume the machine will
come with a Quad speed CD. I think sound card + speakers adds less than $150.
4. Upgrade to the Microsoft mouse instead of the cheapy that comes with it.
Unfortunately, they are once more claiming that they no longer offer the
Lexmark keyboard option, but you might ask anyway.
One downside of Dell: unlike the retail vendors they DO NOT generally include
the media for anything with the machine. You get all software (including the
operating system), pre-loaded on the hard drive, and a program that will make
diskettes. This is, needless to say, a pain in the a**. Also, as of about
two weeks ago they still were not shipping Win95 on their systems. (If
you're planning on having a Windows/DOS partition, it should really be Win95
instead now). Be sure to ask what's included and whether its possible to get
all the software on a CD at any price.
Btw, a reasonable alternative to the Dell might be an IBM Aptiva, which
actually comes with CDs for all the bundles software.
Btw, if its useful I could probably grease an NFS client license for Win95 or
Windows. I have no idea where one might obtain similar AFS software.
