[ale] Do people still roll their own Linux desktops?

[Michael B. Trausch]

On 03/18/2010 11:18 AM, Pat Regan wrote:
> On 03/17/2010 08:57 AM, Michael Trausch wrote:
>> >  I always build from NewEgg. Though my justification is more along the lines
>> >  of, if I make a mistake and something dies I want to be able to replace it.
>> >  Prefabs suck in that regard.
> I've been running a laptop as my primary machine for quite a few years
> now, so I haven't built much of anything myself lately.
>
> A friend of mine who has been doing the same thing recently needed to
> buy or build a pair of desktops.  We were coming out a bit cheaper on
> the side of prefab machines.  We were coming in quite a bit cheaper when
> he had to factor in Windows licenses...

I try to reuse components when I can to cut the cost.  My desktop cost 
me $350 or so when I rebuilt it with a new set of guts, and I am very 
happy with it.

Of course, I do not factor in Windows licenses.  If I need to run 
Windows (which I have actually come up with the need to do lately, 
sadly) it needs to be in a VM.  Currently I have a single OEM Windows 7 
license, but that's virtually useless to me because I cannot (lawfully) 
run it in a VM and if I attempted to do so, it would de-activate itself. 
  So I require retail licenses anyway.  In the short term, I 
dual-boot---get things setup and ready to test, reboot, test, and GTFO 
of there as soon as possible.

I obviously do not build by own laptops, but I hate the fact that they 
are so costly to get replacement parts for.  It's not like one can take 
a standard motherboard and put it in a laptop.  And thus, laptop 
motherboards are mostly model-specific and expensive.  It sucks.  At 
least they have adopted standards for hard disks and memory; remember 
when even those were specific to a model of laptop, using different 
hardware plugs and crap.  Ick.

	--- Mike

-- 
Michael B. Trausch                                    ☎ (404) 492-6475