Posted on 09/02/2007 12:44:29 PM PDT by hc87
I need some help with a new computer purchase. I'm going to be replacing my almost seven year old computer (1 gz Athlon processor) and would like some advice from Freepers who know PCs. My general philosophy on PC purchases over the years has been to invest in a higher-end processor in a new computer and then plan to do mid-life upgrades on other components over the years. I've had great luck with my HP Pavilion and probably will look first at an HP mail order custom build, starting with one of their media center PCs. That being said, I would be interested in what people think about the following:
1. XP or Vista? If Vista, what flavor?
2 Processor. Single, Core 2, Quad? What speed?
3. Hard drive. Size? Two on board or just one? Portable back up?
4. Graphics Card? I'm more of a Civilization-type/Strategy gamer than anything else. I don't need bleeding edge graphics but would like room for growth.
5. Networking. Probably will use the new machine as the hub of network and use the old one as a kids machine. I'm inclined to worry about this later, so all I really want are expansion slots and (I'm guessing) some kind of network card.
6. Monitor. The 19" flat panel seems like a good trade between cost and screen size. Thoughts?
7. All in one. HP is offering All-in-one printer/copier/scanner/fax machines for $100-$200. Does anyone have any notable experiences with these?
8. Data transfer? HP pushes a Belkin transfer cable. Is this anything more than a USB cable? Or should I just set up a network and deal with data transfer that way?
Thanks for any help you can offer. This is a lot more complicated than choosing between an 8086 and an 8088 processor!
Yes! I bought the HP Photosmart C4180 for $119 when it was introduced last year and I love it. One hell of a machine.
I wouldn't hesitate to buy another. I have friends and family who own Photosmart C series all-in-ones and they love them too.
“which show Linux use has plateaued despite being less than 1%”
But just a few post ago you were stating 1.34 as gospel? The evidence Ill look at is large OEM’s like Dell and HP starting to sell on the desktops. In the end if Linux ends up a 1,2,5, ro 10% I dont much care its always an available option.
“obvious shortcomings”
Back to the inferior foreign clone and not stolen US tech?
I didn’t state anything as gospel, it’s the Linux fanatics that treat it like religion, and are commonly referred to as “zealots”.
Tell ya what, I’m going to try an experiment with you, I’m going to leave the filer off but the minute you try to pull out one of you’re thread killing diversions Ill cease talking to you. Ill let you know when you hit one so that *if* you want to continue like adults you can readdress the issue.
So Ill say, sorry for using the word Gospel in post 42, I was trying to express that earlier in this thread you treated a site which had shown no Linux growth as authoritative and beyond question.
When I pointed out that (a) Its a web counter and given its numbers for OSX are off its probably not right for Linux either and (b) Even if it was right it shows healthy growth in Linux if not in august itself, over the time frame from may to august.
In my mind measuring market share give such a margin for error for percentages as small as the OSX and Linux footprints is completely ineffective. To get a macroscopic picture I look at the effects like what are OEMs doing. When one looks at OEM’s they are defiantly seeing a market opening for Linux.
After I point this out you started to talk about other sites and their numbers this begs the question can you just pick any site you want to suit your argument at the time?
Bring back the number of expected Linux home desktop sales for Dell and HP, divide that by total number of systems expected to be sold this year by all manufacturers. Then, tell us if that number is above or below 1%.
I would be very interested in any forecast you can find, I have looked a bit but to no avail. I doubt HP and Dell would be making the investment they are without someone in marketing telling them there is a place for this.
Your method would give a nice picture into part of the market but you're ignoring other small vendors like Microtel. And then there is the systems sold with no OS.
Have they made WINE usable for non-techies yet?
I don’t have a link butdo remember Dell’s original estimate was 20,000 the first year, apparently enough for them to justify selling them. What percentage of overall pc sales do you figure that is? Considering tens of millions are expected to be sold this year, not very large LOL.
I had not seen that thanks for the info (Link for context?). 20K is an incredibly small number but obviously the folks at dell and HP are betting on the future by even bothering with that. Still it will be nice to see when Dell publishes some number. In the meant time please consider that the penetration Linux had amassed to 2006 was without any prolonged backing by someone the likes of Dell or HP, let alone *both* of them
In fact my one linux box at home was a dell sold with XP which I now run CentOS on..
Its nice to have a reasonable conversation with you, please do keep it up..
I think so. I’m not a Linux techie, and I installed and use it.
That said, I much prefer to run a Virtual Machine, with XP installed, and use that. And for this, I use VirtualBox, which is free, user friendly, and hasn’t even burped once.
I only use wine for “quickie” types of things.
Just had a similar request from a friend. She got a Everex 1.5Ghz Intel Celeron notebook with WinXP for less than $400 after rebates. If browsing is all you want to do, cheap is good enough. She is happy with the machine. Most applications aren’t multi threaded and can’t use the extra cores.
As to Vista, MS gave me a Beta copy, I used it like I promised for six months, then deleted it. They sent the full version, it’s still in the box. It was way too slow and ponderous. I now use Dell/Ubuntu full time on my $400 3GHz Dell 400SC box. Works fine for net browsing and all other chores.
You want windows, use XP. You want free, use Ubuntu.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2134077,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
Dell reportedly will release its new Ubuntu-powered computers on May 24. In his blog, LinuxQuestions.org founder Jeremy Garcia writes that a Dell staffer told him, “We will be launching a Linux based OS (Ubuntu) on the E520, 1505 and XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24.”
From this employee’s note, it appears that Dell doesn’t expect these system to sell all that well. “We expect these systems to be less than 1 percent of our OS mix for the entire year which is ~20,000 systems annually,” he is quoted as saying.
Thanks for the link, Looks like they were talking about 1% this year but I doubt dell would put up a whole new support line (as in training people and testing technology) if all they expected was 1% of annual sales.
Also this is leaving out long time Linux vendors and people who just download it to a PC they purchased..
Obviously no amount of facts will bring you back into reality, so enjoy your fantasy while it lasts.
I myself have said Linux could end up as low as 1% of the market, I still would not care all to much because 1% (or even a tenth of a percent) of the desktop market and 10-20% of the server market are enough to keep development healthy..
But if by your post you mean this rather civil discussion is at an end, thank you for the conversation..
Thanks, where did you admit linux was ~1%, you seem pretty stuck in denial on this thread.
I have not seen anything to convince me that it is less than or even significantly close to 1%. Dell may expect it be 1% of their sales but Linux has almost always been purchased in the form of BYOB or just overwrite your OEM OS (as I did with my Dell).
Meanwhile Linux continues to do just fine on the server and this will keep the demand alive enough to encourage development. Do we take a poor percent of Solaris or AIX on the desktop as a sign that those two operating systems are in trouble?
The problem is you’re using web counters which are notoriously unreliable when dealing with numbers *within* the margin of error. E.G. I can point you here (http://www.sqlspace.com/viewtopic.php?p=162561#162561) Where Linux has 4.82% market share and OSX only has 2.5.
If I had to guesstimate the Linux desktop share it would be somewhere between one and three percent. Could it be 1%? Sure could it be 3% maybe but in the end it moot. Dell and HP both see enough promise in the Linux desktop to put in place the human infrastructure needed to market the desktops.
That’s not what I asked, I asked for evidence of your claim in post 55 that you have said Linux could end up with 1%, since you are denying multiple forms of evidence showing that now.
Sorry I misunderstood,
That being said I am not going to go through the thousands of post over the many years I have been on FR to prove to you that I have said as such, I really dont have the time for that.
Am I positive I have said 1%? not really but I’m pretty darn sure I have said I don’t care how low it gets on the desktop so long as the development community keeps the tree alive. (and know I’m not going to spend hours finding that one for you either) It may have been here on on another forum.
BTW Your first form of evidence showed 3nearly three and a half not one percent.
If you want to claim the fact I cant link to everything I have ever said on FR as some sort of victory have at it..
Well that's what you just said you had said, in post #55, so it brings into question whether what you are posting is ever correct, doesn't it?
Your first form of evidence showed 3nearly three and a half not one percent.
This is wrong too, further bringing into question what you're posting, doesn't it? Check post #30, my first post to this thread. That link takes you to w3counter, which shows Linux tied with Windows 98 at 1.34%.
Why are you having so much trouble telling the truth, or is this an unfair attack on you somehow? I'm rying to be civil with you, but it's hard when you keep posting things that simply aren't true LOL.
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