A couple of weeks ago I got myself a new computer - or rather, a new old computer. I did not actually want to, because apart from one particular habit, my computer was performing quite adequately. That habit, however, was simply switching itself off from time to time for no apparent reason. So, despite the fact that I could not really afford it (my dad agreed to pay for it), I had to get a new one. What I got was a Compaq AP550, a dual Pentium III.
I must say, I'm really glad I got it. That dual processor (you didn't have dual cores in 2000, when it was built) really works wonders. A release candidate of the new version of Qt was released yesterday, and I grabbed it today and compiled it. This normally takes four hours; today, as you might expect, it took around two. I use Bibble to process my RAW pictures, specifically the Pro version, whose feature list says it's "fully multithreaded" and that people with dual processor machines should see a 100% improvement - and I have (and both processors are faster than the single chip in my old machine). The thing really flies. The machine has 512 Mb of RAM, which I plan to upgrade as soon as I can reasonably afford it.
The other big advantage is that I am not restricted to low profile expansion cards, particularly graphics cards. When I bought my old Viglen, I had a real problem finding graphics cards which would fit, and I had to get a new graphics card almost immediately because the pre-installed Intel graphics chip did not work well with Linux. It took me ages to find a suitable card. I'm not going to rush out and buy another one right now, and even so, my graphics card slot is an AGP 4x, and there has been two other standards (AGP 8x and PCI Express) since then.
One of the first things I did was install the new release of Ubuntu (a Linux OS) on it, and I must say that this is the most impressive Ubuntu release I've used, particularly given that I'm a KDE user. Ubuntu's main desktop is based on GNOME; they produce a spin-off called Kubuntu which you can install from within Ubuntu or by itself, but the Kubuntu KDE desktop for the last couple of releases was not all that nice to use; its responsiveness left a lot to be desired. This was much better, and it's not just because my machine is faster (at least one other reviewer has said so). Dell is talking about selling PCs with Ubuntu pre-loaded, which would not be such a bad idea given that Windows Vista is such a hog and that Windows XP is being discontinued at the end of the year. The only problem is that many Linux users like to choose their version and not everyone will choose Ubuntu.
The only thing I have to do now is to put my old DVD-ROM drive into it (when I got it, I was just too eager to get it running to do something like that). Installing things like hard drives are likely to be much simpler in this system than in the old one - another problem with "low profile" boxes is that they don't expect you to change components often, and they are crammed in close and not easy to get in and out. With this one, there is an extra space for a hard drive, which I haven't yet put in but it's not as if I actually need all that space - it's likely to be used by another Linux version, so that I can put together packages for my blog management program.
Assalamu alaikum, sounds nice! I love new computers *smile*, and any new "gadgets".
Trouble is if you want to keep up you need to. I want to have a look at Vista soleley to keep up from a job point of view. But the hardware req are so high I'm going to have to upgrade.
Salam alaikum,
I'm glad your experience with the latest release of Ubuntu was positive. I wish my experience was the same. I wasted an entire weekend upgrading my wife's computer to the latest release of Kubuntu when it was released a few weeks back (Kubuntu because she got used to the Windows-like interface under 6-10). I should have left it as it was. Now she has programs that freeze/crash regularly, a network connection that doesn't always work first time round and media files that won't play. I'm still using Ubuntu 6.04 LTS on my laptop - primarily because it doesn't have an optical drive - but I've decided not to bother upgrading. If it aint broke, don't fix it, says I. Tho' having said that, my wife's computer is broke - but I can't be bothered to start all over again. Happy computing.
As-Salaamu 'alaikum,
Actually, my experience with Feisty has been the same as yours: what I wrote was basically initial impressions. I have had the system crash on me several times, and not when using taxing applications. I have replaced it with OpenSUSE 10.2, but am considering replacing that because they no longer have the latest version of Qt 4 in their online repositories. I'm not sure what with; I foolishly disposed of my copy of the new Mandriva release, and Fedora 6 is not very good (the update program is a complete dog, it takes ages to do its checks before installing a program or telling you it can't).
Despite not having the will to do a reinstall, I somehow mustered the energy after class today and so my wife is now a Ubuntu user again, with its desktop sort of Windowsised. I much prefer Ubuntu to Kubuntu - but I must confess, I think Windows will do me when I finally get a real new computer (not a second-hand new computer) in a year or so. Fortunately, my wife only needs the computer for emails, internet and the odd document, so a free OS is quite handy.
Tim: if you do get Vista, get Firefox pretty promptly. The problems with Vista I mentioned earlier seem to have all come from Explorer - I put Firefox here and it performs fine. Perhaps it's because it's not a Windows API application: it draws its own buttons and menus and stuff. Also, the Windows Classic theme does improve performance somewhat. However, installing updates and anti-virus software slows everything down when you start up a machine, something which is much less of a problem on Linux.
Tim,
I upgraded from 6.06 to 6.10 to 7.04 with no problems. One big difference between Dapper and Feisty, which you might be interested in, is the display of typefaces. There has, in the past, been complaints about Linux not displaying fonts very well. Dapper wasn't great. When I upgraded I noticed a huge difference in the quality of the font display. Especially if you download some very nice traditional Open Source fonts for free: Gentium, Cardo, Old Standard, Linux Libertine. Linux is now better for typefaces and fonts than Windows, especially if your willing to pay for some proprietary fonts from the big type faces. However, after a recent trip to the Apple Shop in the Birmingham Bull-ring, Mac's still reign supreme for fonts and typefaces, especially if Adobe professional fonts are used: Adobe Garamond Professional on a 15ins MacBook Pro was stunning.
Yusuf: yes, I hate Internet Explorer - my wife has to use it when she's doing e-learning for her ECDL - but that's all we use it for.
Anon: fiddling with my wife's computer after the fresh install, I did notice the fonts looked better. And of course it's true about the Mac, but sadly I cannot afford new hardware AND the software all over again. I continue to make do with Photoshop 6, Quark Xpress 5 and Dreamweaver 4 - I'm not shelling out £1.5K+ for Mac versions.
Thanks for all the good advice!