OK, we are being asked by Savage.com list members how to to duplicate a cheap Linux box again.First, don't buy a skinny little Dell box --- I went through two of them in less than 5 years time and the issues were as follows:
The power supply fan in the little thin half-height box is noisy as hell.
It is a pain in the ass to get a decent video card into them. You have to get a half height video card and that costs a lot of extra money for the video card.
Next, the 45-50 watt power supply units in those skinny little Dell units are crap --- they power limit the box to the point it CAN'T ADEQUATELY POWER UP THE HALF HEIGHT VIDEO CARD YOU FINALLY FIND TO BUY. This can cause early Video Card death in these units.
...... thank God for extended warranties on video cards and that I actually bought one this time (2nd try) ......Next, the overall service life of the video card stressed too durn small power supply Dell box sucks, I never got more than 2 years of solid, no trouble use out of either of them. Part of this was running the power supply up at the raggedy edge of death, the rest was dust and cat fuzz getting into the power supply fan (the only cooling fan the little box has).
The thin little half-height boxes are doomed to give you trouble early
and then to die on you early, in other words. And the replacement power supply costs as much as the entire refurb half height Dell unit did.
Note what I recommend in the picture of my big Linux box below. It is an old
full sized Engineering workstation with a FULL SIZED CASE AND POWER SUPPLY that can mount a full size video card (much much cheaper to buy on sale than a half height card with anywhere near modern specs).
Also note the fan in the full sized box is huge and totally quiet, and by putting the poly fabric air filter all around the front air vents I stopped the dust and cat fuzz from getting into the unit and screwing up the power supply and fan.
Lastly, you are paying way too much for the half height unit with the sorry power supply. You are spending nearly twice as much as buying them from Ebay sources or best yet, directly from a large refurb house who is peddling off their odds and ends at Black Friday time really really cheap.
Specs on an Engineering Workstation even back them were pretty good, 8 gigs of memory, a decent sized hard drive, a good Intel Core 2 duo chipset and a 450 watt power supply.
I bought this unit on Black Friday sale for $79 with no OS supplied. I used to take it apart to blow out the dust once a year, but since I put the air filter bra on it that isn't needed any longer.
Reminder, buying a decent modern video card is important ...... most of what we consider response speed is painting the web pages on your screen. A modern video card has enough guts to do this VERY quickly and you will find that the computer CPU isn't as important as you thought it was.
Next, only buy stuff that has Linux drivers for it
GOOD PROVEN drivers that are included inside the Linux kernel itself. This maximizes the speed of both the processing unit and the video system. This step requires you to know and understand what is "Intel inside" and what video processor you are planning on using. Hint, Nvidia tends to be supported much much later, much much much much much later than AMD / Radeon graphics cards and the AMD / Radeon card is much cheaper to buy as well.
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This is intended as an example of the sorts of people you need to be dealing with. They have better machines off in the corner that will get sold on Black Friday for really really cheap, just to clear them out. Pick a 3 ghz Core 2 duo or better machine and TALK TO THE PEOPLE --- they can max out the systems memory for very very cheap as they pull the memory sticks from the dead machines they take in.
Buy a full sized Dell box preferably an Engineering workstation model as they have the very best specs.
https://discountcomputerdepot.com/todays-top-deals-save-big/desktop-deals/fas...THIS IS FOR EXAMPLE ONLY, it still costs too too much. You are paying $45 for a Win 10 license you won't use and this particular offer isn't but for 4 gigs of systems memory and it isn't an Engineering workstation grade device at all.
Scrounge, look diligently at several new sources every day and around Black Friday your Linux box will come to you.