Questions about setting up a new computer

[Janina Sajka]

John:

That's not bad, but I'd put a bit more into the effort for the sake of
future proofing your new machine for the next dacade.

More RAM would be smart, and it's not very expensive. So, if price is
the issue, you might want to start with a single 8Gb stick on a board
that allows you to add 3 more sticks. You can add more RAM cheaply that
way.

Be careful about the CPU. You want one with lots of L2 cache. If I
recall, you're a programmer and would be compiloing. L2 cache will help
you get that done faster, so will the RAM.

Sata hard drives are also available with different amounts of caching.
You want to choose more, not less caching.


None of the above changes the price. It just allows you to meet needs
better today and tomorrow.

Janina

PS: My ssd drive cost me $60 about 6 years ago. It's only 60Gb, but it's
where I keep my Linux installation. I have separate sata disks for /home
and all my files. I've been happy with this choice. Just saying ...


John J. Boyer writes:
> Thanks for the information provided by you guys on this list. 
> 
> The advantages of a SSD are minimal for me. I'll prbably just get a 1 TB 
> hard drive. Other specs are a desktop tower, 8 GB Ram, ethernet gigabit 
> poer, VGA port, USB ports and Bluetooth.
> 
> John
> 
> On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 08:47:38PM -0400, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Hi, John:
> > 
> > You've already gotten excellent advice on list about modern Linux
> > installations, so I'm not going to repeat all that. Suffice it to say
> > that what you're trying to achieve is pretty much the default install
> > these days, i.e. the tmpfs in ram, etc., etc.
> > 
> > My question to you is what kind of machine? Are we talking about an
> > office tower here? Or is this going to be a laptop?
> > 
> > If the former--then there's lots to talk about. But, if it's a laptop, I
> > strongly suggest you consider getting it from an outfit like Emperor
> > Linux:
> > 
> > http://www.emperorlinux.com/
> > 
> > You'll pay a bit more for the machine than you would pay for the same
> > model elsewhere, but it will have Linux installed to your
> > specifications, and you'll have their support as you learn to use your
> > new machine. That's worth the price difference, imo.
> > 
> > PS: Go ahead and have them install everything you need to run the
> > graphical desktop with Orca's braille support, but tell them you want
> > the console to be your default boot environment. That's a very simple
> > systemctl command these days, and leaves you with all the flexibility
> > you can ever want, i.e. you can start the gui with a startx command
> > whenever you do want to run Firefox, or something else on the desktop.
> > 
> > Janina
> > 
> > John J. Boyer writes:
> > > I've more or less decided to replacer my ten-year-old Linux machine. It 
> > > is giving error messages intermittently. Most of them are about sector 
> > > errors, but others seem to have nothing to do with the hard drive. It 
> > > may be more and more troublesome, even if the hard drive is replaced. 
> > > Besides, it would be nice to get more up-to-date hardware.
> > > 
> > > I'm thinking of getting 32 GB of ram. 8 GB will be for normal use. The 
> > > other 24 GB will be in a ramdisk. Do I need a paging file? 8 GB of 
> > > available ram should be more than enough. The paging file on my present 
> > > machine always shows 0 usage, even with only 4 GB of ram. How do I avoid 
> > > setting up a paging file during installation? I'm using Debian Jessie.
> > > 
> > > How do i set up the ramdisk? I want to assign the temp directory to it. 
> > > It might be nice if the bin, sbin and usr directories were loaded onto 
> > > it at boot-up.
> > > 
> > > Thanks,
> > > John
> > > 
> > > -- 
> > > John J. Boyer; President,
> > > AbilitiesSoft, Inc.
> > > Email: john.boyer at abilitiessoft.org
> > > Website: http://www.abilitiessoft.org
> > > Status: 501(C)(3) Nonprofit
> > > Location: Madison, Wisconsin USA
> > > Mission: To develop softwares and provide STEM services for people with 
> > >          disabilities which are available at no cost.
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Blinux-list mailing list
> > > Blinux-list at redhat.com
> > > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
> > 			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
> > 		Email:	janina at rednote.net
> > 
> > Linux Foundation Fellow
> > Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org
> > 
> > The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> > Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures	http://www.w3.org/wai/apa
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Blinux-list mailing list
> > Blinux-list at redhat.com
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 
> -- 
> John J. Boyer; President,
> AbilitiesSoft, Inc.
> Email: john.boyer at abilitiessoft.org
> Website: http://www.abilitiessoft.org
> Status: 501(C)(3) Nonprofit
> Location: Madison, Wisconsin USA
> Mission: To develop softwares and provide STEM services for people with 
>          disabilities which are available at no cost.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina at rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures	http://www.w3.org/wai/apa