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Mongo - Cheer-up, mate - my setup will make yours look last-week modern....!
There might be some folk old enough to remember this setup....
Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 board
AMD 6000 Dual-Core 3GHz
Geforce 8400 series 512MB
Seagate SATA 320GB HDD
Paired 2GB DDR2
SATA Std DVD burner (non HD)
(Self designed and built, bit over 2 years ago, used a re-cleaned earlier case, added 12cm case fan, total cost, all other parts, $522.00)
Screen - Viewsonic VA926 at native 1280 x 1024.
System, PCLinuxOS Linux late 2010. Software - setup is a bit different from Windows, but the Synaptic Installer/Uninstaller gives the number of "packages" in the Distro Repository as 12,563, of which I have - /1833 installed / 0 broken / 0 to install/upgade / 0 to remove.
Jotted that down just after doing a full System/Software update today, which took about 8 minutes.
The system and software on this box is OpenSource, no cost to user, and gets updated every few days. The saying that "there's no proper software in Linux" is a bit outdated. If you can't find good to excellent software - often several choices - for anything you want to do, out of over 12,000 choices - you have a problem...
Exception - Adobe Photoshop 7 / update 7.01 - running in Wine. Bought I think in 2002, when still working as a Windows tech - with "industry discount", was just over $700.00.... I'll probably spend less later this year on parts, when I get around to building a new PC - I already have a nice 3-bay, 4 USBs + 2 audios on front, etc, case for it, somebody down the road threw out...
But that's another thing with Linux - it's an efficient O/S, with minimal 'overheads' and no DRM-ing whatever - the person with the root-password can access any part of the O/S to tweak or improve it. All System files are text-files, and - assuming that you know what you're doing (or get the tweak details from your Distro's Forum) - you can edit or change them line-by-line in a text-editor.
You don't so much "add more CPU power and more RAM" when building a Linux PC - you rather tend just to do it around new parts at similar levels, and the 2-3 years more modern low-medium cost parts you use tend to have a bit higher spec. Example - this year, about the same money as bought the AMD 3GHz dual-core, will get a quad-core now, the DDR2 RAM will be the same amount of DDR3, and a 750GB SATA HDD will cost less than the SATA 320GB I put in this box...
For the last well over 2 years, this box has done eveything I want to do, with grunt and RAM to spare - including a lot of video transcoding, video and audio prep, video-editing with KdenLive (similar to Sony Vegas Pro, more effects and transitions, add-ons, etc, easier to use, and rather faster on rendering, etc.)
Graphics are Gimp and ImageMajick - Photoshop 7 for Windows compatibles.
Still running healthily - the ambient in this room is 24.9C - and across 6 Desktops I have this Forum on D3, Avidemux on D4 converting Fuji HS10 1280x 720 video to 720 x 400 for DVD conversion via KdenLive, and Downloads running on D5 and D6. D1 is left clear as usual for anything that turns up, and D2 has OpenOffice Impress open for a presentation I'm meant to be doing - but have been slacking on...
Gkrellm - the system monitor in the top-right corner of all Desktops - tells me that the AMD cores are at 59C and 54C - and the board is at 49C. As well as several other things - downloads, internet loading, HDD activity, Proc (processing), uptime, so on.
All of which might sound a "bit different" to some folk - but it's rather nice when you get used to it...
Dave.
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