Do you buy or build?

[mstlyevil]

I am starting a poll to see how many people on this thread buy prebuilt computers or build your own. The purpose is to determine how many Ubuntu users are paying the Microsoft tax and also to see how many are tech savvy when it come to their hardware.

My first computer was a Toshiba Sattelite lappy I bought in Nov of 2001. Since then I have built two computers and am going to build my next one tomorrow. I dual boot Windows so I do buy OEM copies to run on my PC's. The system I am putting together is as follows.

CPU- Athlon 64 3200
MB- DFI Infinity NForce 4 SLI
GC- Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce 6600GT PCIE
MEM Patriot PC3200 CL2 Timings 2-3-2-5 2x512 (1024MB)
HD- WD WD2500JS 250 GB SATA II 8MB buffer
OPD- Aopen 16x DVD+-R/RW

[mstlyevil]

Is it possible to merge this poll with the other thread? I somehow made a mistake and it posted them both seperate. This message is intended for a moderator.

[eriqk]

I'd love to buy a complete system, but there isn't one that 1. suits my needs and 2. I can afford. So I stuck with building. In retrospect, If I'd saved the money I sunk into this machine I could have easily afforded a Mac.
My Shuttle was a nice compromise in that respect- enough components on board to have a system up and running in no time after adding some key components. Hunting these down wasn't easy, though.

I make music and do video stuff, so a computer should be stable and fast without adding all sorts of incompatibility crap (PCI latency to name but one).
My main box, afer much hit and miss and many euros:

ASUS A7N8X-e deLuxe
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
512MB noname RAM (looking at a bank of 1GB by TwinMOS in front of me)
2x 80 GB Maxtor IDE
1x 80 GB Seagate SATA (useless for audio with this config. It will be the home of an Ubuntu system Real Soon Now if all goes well).
LG CDRW
NEC DVD+-RW, forgot the type- 2100?
ATi 9600 SE
M-Audio Delta44
Lian Li case. The Bauhaus lives on!

2x WinXP Pro.

Shuttle: XPC SN41G2V3

AMD XP 2600+ (must have been the last one in the Neitherlands)
512 MB TwinMOS
80 GB Western Digital IDE
NEC DVD+-RW, bit younger than the other one. 8300 something?
M-Audio Delta44

Windows and Ubuntu 5.10 research center. Great, sturdy little box. And, oh, the irony: I needed all kinds of drivers for Windows, but Ubuntu worked Out Of The Box.

Oh, about the tech savviness: I became savvy-ish because of my main box. Spent ages approaching trouble with extreme prejudice.

Groet, Erik

[SilentCacophony]

My answer is more complicated than the poll allows, so I answered the poll with my current/future intentions.

I have bought two computers (with Windows installed.) My own was an EMachine from 2000, which came with Win 98. It has subsequently been upgraded with so many components that the only original things in it are the processor and harddrive. The other is a Gateway that I bought for my girlfriend, with Windows XP installed.

As for Windows, I will use the copy of Windows 98 that I have for as long as it will suit my needs (for commercial games.) I don't have much problem with Win 98, other than some personal ire toward MS which started back when I used an Amiga computer. I strongly disagree with the EULA of Windows XP, however, and will not buy that for my own computer. For my girlfriend, it's the best solution, though.

I am planning to build myself a new computer in the next month, and will likely install my *old* copy of Win 98 on it for gaming, but Ubuntu will be my main OS.

Newer games which state that Windows XP is a requirement will not get a sale from me.

[WildTangent]

Theres no option for "Build my own, have windows on it (but didn't pay)" :P

-Wild

[alinuxfan]

wild tangent, i thought the same thing...................
:rolleyes:

[mstlyevil]

Theres no option for "Build my own, have windows on it (but didn't pay)" :P

-Wild

Just select the one where you bought a copy I guess. I did not think to add I built my own and run a pirated copy of Windows.

[drogoh]

Hm. My response to the topic is... "both".

[WildTangent]

Just select the one where you bought a copy I guess. I did not think to add I built my own and run a pirated copy of Windows.
Not pirated either. My boss gave me a COA :P It's probably of dubious legality (bought from some shady market in Toronto), but as far as I'm concerned, that's his fault, and not mine. Not his fault really, it's the owner of the store that buys this stuff. Glad my boss convinced him to stop though, we get the proper OEM packages now.

-Wild

[Lucifiel]

There really ought to be an option for :

"I got my computer pre-assembled and tested at a shop."

[b0ng0]

I built my own but had a copy of XP Pro from my now deceased laptop so I just used that. I would always keep a copy of Windows to be honest, some programs I use frequently will never be available for Linux (at least not in the forseeable future :p).

[ske1fr]

I built my own six months ago, and stupidly bought a copy of Media Center Edition to use with it. I've never installed it. No, really! Kubuntu does everything I want that machine to do, and does NOT nag for activation or "Ubuntu Genuine Advantage".

If I were building now I'd be in the "I build my own and would never consider buying Windows or installing it on it." category.

[Sunflower1970]

I've always bought my computers..but when we're ready for a new one...I've been wanting to try my hand at building one...but now with Dell offering Ubuntu on some of their models, I might buy again...

I'm torn on what I'll do when we're ready for a new computer...

[DR_K13]

build my boxes out of spare parts, throw linux on it- win

Free computers > Paying for computers.

[bchaffin72]

I salvage and build. I enjoy the hands on approach and doing my own OS installations, so I have never gone out of my way to buy a ready made PC.

[compmodder26]

Built my first one back in 2001. Back then, I didn't know much about Linux so I bought windows XP to go on it. I still use it today. Specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2800+
Thermaltake Silentboost Heatsink and fan
512 MB PC3200 DDR RAM
ABIT NF7-S Motherboard
Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra -> ATI Radeon 9200 SE -> Nvidia 7300GT (progression through computer lifetime)
Cambridge Soundworks 4.1 speaker system

After building this system, I built one for my grandparents, my parents, my wife's parents, and one for my friend. I've since gotten out of the building business for other people as I got tired of being tech support.

[newlinux]

I salvage and build as well. I accept friends old computers as well. I buy some new parts at deep discounts, buy used parts from local PC stores and ebay. Don't build laptops though - bought my last one with ubuntu from system76. However, If I am going to put windows on a computer I'd probably buy it (and then dual boot it). I will eventually by a Vista computer so I can help others with it, and stay somewhat current on the "dominant" OS for support purposes (plus I do have some software that is windows only).

[aysiu]

I'm not sure I agree with the present tense of the poll options. All my computers were bought from major manufacturers with Windows preinstalled... but they were also all purchased before I'd even tried any Linux distro.

I don't know what I'd do (especially since I don't anticipate buying a new computer any time soon), only what I've done in the past.

[_simon_]

I have only ever bought one pre-built machine, it was so unreliable and cheaply made that I decided from then on to build my own.

I do not own a copy of Windows and do not want to.

My current Ubuntu rig:

Athlon 64 X2 4600+
Asrock ALiveSATA2-GLAN
Team Elite 2GB DDR2 Dual Channel 800MHz
160GB SATA II 8MB cache Hitachi
EVGA 256MB 7900GS (500MHz core) PCI-E
SB Audigy 2 ZS + Acoustic Labs Surround Sound
Philips DVD RW
ThermalTake XaserIII V1000A Super Tower
Scythe Kama-Meter

[dannyboy79]

i'd like to clarify my answer. i built my first system about 6 years ago and purchased windows for it but that was before I found the wonderful FREE world of linux and now I would never purchase windows. Especially when i saw in Circuit City they wanted 599.99 for Windows Vista Premium. I was like, HA, are you kidding me!!! I change the screen saver on a buunch of the samples there so it said, forget Vista, GET UBUNTU. so hopefully a few potential ignorant consumers will see that and it'll spark their interest. I have built 3 machines since then and have transferrred over an old laptop to xubuntu fiesty and am in the process of reviving some old 500mhz celeron machines to be network attached storage on my network using either samba or nfs. i can just leave then in the attic as I won't need a display on them! they'll have WOL enabled ethernet card so that they aren't on all the time.

[theicyj]

I've always built my own desktop computers. I would never purchase a copy of windows (as it would never get installed on any of my computers), but I did get two free copies of Vista and Office 2007 (for participating in some program), of which one copy of Vista and Office is just collecting dust in the basement.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I buy, I am not good enough to build my own computer from scratch yet.

[RudolfMDLT]

Theres no option for "Build my own, have windows on it (but didn't pay)" :P


Yip!:KS

[starcraft.man]

Hmmm, not sure how to reply... I mean the PC I am running on is a heavily modified custom PC i had built from IBM, cost me a good price 5 years (i think) ago, it was top of the line then and its still good enough. I admit the old P4 is a bit slow but other than that it runs well. I have though replaced almost every part in this old (all new ram, graphics card, ethernet card) PC save the mobo and cpu.

My other two more recent PCs were built for me though (one desktop for dad and one labtop for mom, I dare not try to make a labtop >.>.)

I'll prolly build my next computer myself when I find time and the money to get all the good parts, like a new core 2 cpu :D.

[leona]

I always build my own, I like to know what bits are inside, I like to use quality, named components, and not the PC chips boards that 'other' companies like to use. It is now more expensive to build than buy but this will not change what I do, I prefer to build, that's just me.

Only exception to this is notebooks. but that's only due to them being non standard, if you could buy the cases, motherboards and all other bits and build your own, I would do that too, though I've repaired a few now, I'm not afraid to take them apart and 'attempt' to fix them, I enjoy a challenge :)

This subject quite apt, because I rebuilding all 3 of our machines this weekend, my partners, server and mine, all getting refitted, and the whole thing only costing £250 tops, doing my bit for recycling ;)

[lazyart]

Never bought one prebuilt, no intentions of doing so. The last computer that I bought (and really, mom bought it for me in high school) was a Commodore 128 (oops, I just dated myself). I tell everyone else to buy them prebuilt because if I build it for them I'll never reach the end of silly support calls.

It's fun. I'm about to rip out the motherboard in my Feisty box because it's got that silly Rambus memory in it. I want to upgrade from 512mb to something that will make virtualization a little smoother. Cheaper to get a new mobo and use spare memory then to shell out $150 for RIMMs. The 2 gig P4 under the hood is has plenty of processing power for my tasks.

[AndyCooll]

I've always built my own. I finally bought a legal copy of XP a couple of years ago, but this was before I'd discovered Linux. I've now got it installed as a VMware image (which I haven't fired up for ages).

:cool:

[forrestcupp]

I build a computer and just keep upgrading individual parts until it can't be upgraded anymore.

[moffatt666]

Build - more fun and I'm not afraid to tinker when things stop working. Current specs (you can tell I'm skint)

256 Mb RAM
15 Gb HDD
Athlon XP 2000+
ATi Radeon 9200SP
TV Card
10/100 Wired LAN
DVD+RW

Yes it's crap but it was built 4 years ago and some of the parts were about 2 years old to begin with although it has been heavily upgraded.

[jariku]

Build - more fun and I'm not afraid to tinker when things stop working. Current specs (you can tell I'm skint)

256 Mb RAM
15 Gb HDD
Athlon XP 2000+
ATi Radeon 9200SP
TV Card
10/100 Wired LAN
DVD+RW

Yes it's crap but it was built 4 years ago and some of the parts were about 2 years old to begin with although it has been heavily upgraded.
Haha, I have an almost identical setup (replace the TV card with a firewire card and the DVD-RW with a DVD-ROM and a CD-RW) and I think of it as my high-end machine.

:lolflag:

[whistlerspa]

For my current desktop I built my own from reliable propriety components. That way you know what you're getting and can future proof it to some extent.

I've upgraded video card and RAM and have been running it for four years. It can still run Feisty with Beryl comfortably.

[dannyboy79]

For my current desktop I built my own from reliable propriety components. That way you know what you're getting and can future proof it to some extent.

I've upgraded video card and RAM and have been running it for four years. It can still run Feisty with Beryl comfortably.

i know this is off topic but I am curious as to what your hardware specs are especially the vid card and and motherboard and bios is not the one that came with it, and then what driver you're using. I can't even get my Nvidia GeForce 6200 128mb to work with the nv or the nvidia driver in Fiesty and that's not even trying compiz or Beryl!!!!!! I keep getting random freezing of apps, like FF, gedit, terminal, and misc config dialog boxes opened they System, Admin, or Prefs. THey open fine, but then after a sec, I can't click on any of the menu picks, then it starts fading away, then the other apps that were open stop working!! All I can do is move mouse and that's it. I can however still log in over ssh and also go to a tty using ctrl-alt-F1. This is with Fiesty stock install and generic 386 kernel or whichever kernel is stock for x86 Fiesty 32bit. and Yes, I have already posted within the topic about Fiesty freezing.

[LukeCarrier]

I don't buy windows, i borrow it off a mate and get the key off a website, every time.

[sloggerkhan]

If I get a laptop I buy based on best hardware relative to price in the price range I'm searching. Don't care if it comes with an OS, I'm just going to install Ubuntu on it anyway.

Desktop, well, that varies. I might build one this summer.

[SirShaggy]

I have built all of my PCs except 1. I was in a pinch on a job that had to be completed and my 1st Abit NF7-S board died. I ran down to Office Max, bought the cheapest "On Sale" PC they had in staock and finished the job I had been working on. Turns out, the Compaq I bought works great as a file server!
I have since purchased 4 more Abit NF7-S boards, rebuilt 3 old PCs I had laying around with used parts from friends, Ebay and a yard sale. I also have a brand new system I built just before Fiesty came out. It is a dual core AMD box, SLI, and has a TV/FM tuner card that I have been playing with.
I have 1 copy of Windows that came on the Compaq and I moved it to the new system I built. I never used it on the Compaq and figured it would be nice on the faster system. I used XP twice and just don't like it. I prefer Linux. I said I'd never buy a PC with Windows, it happened though. Go figure!!
SirShaggy

[dannyboy79]

I don't buy windows, i borrow it off a mate and get the key off a website, every time.

pretty sure within the forums rules it's not a good idea to tought piracy. All your personal information can be gotten from the Website owners if anyone from Microsoft were to see that. Just an FYI.

[Alpha_toxic]

I build everything myself cause I just want to have exactly what I need + I like doing the research, I learn stuff :)

I would never pay for windows. I used to pirate it, now I can get practically all MS software from my university for free (though I don't actually need any of it).

My current box:
- Epox mf4-ultra 3
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2GHz by default, currently clocked at 2.5GHz)
- NV 7600 GST (this is actually GS with DDR3, wich practically makes it and underclocked GT, wich I "fixed" right away ;) )
- 2GB RAM Super-T (also clocked)
- Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 (Tthe AM2 CPU socket needs some "moding" to make sure that the cooler is stable and is not going to fall off. Nothing too difficult to do and the cooler is woth it.)
- a nice Foxconn box with a big Fortron PSU
- HDDs, DVDs, and all other "minors" are not importanat...

Finaly you get a very quiet (with the propper fans), powerfull and robust machine that is also much cheaper than preassembled. On top of that I'm sure that every piece of hardware in there is linux friendly "out of the box"

btw, you have all noticed that ubuntu is installing memtest86+ by default and this is a ******* GREAT idea for anyone that intends to overclock anything :)

[tszanon]

I'm between the last 2 options: I build my computers, I don't buy a new Windows for it, but I move my Win2000 installation (move = format the old computer and install in the new one) to the new computer so I can play windows games without any trouble. But Windows is just for games, everything else (including those games that run natively under linux) is done in Ubuntu.

[mips]

[QUOTE=dannyboy79;2693667I can't even get my Nvidia GeForce 6200 128mb to work with the nv or the nvidia driver in Fiesty and that's not even trying compiz or Beryl!!!!!!.[/QUOTE]

Got a link to your support thread and what is the Brand & Model of the card ???

It should work just fine though.

[dannyboy79]

Got a link to your support thread and what is the Brand & Model of the card ???

It should work just fine though.

It's a XFX GeForce 6200 128mb AGP card. I got it working though, I had to reinstall Feisty as NOTHING would make my machine work!!! It was causing freezing on any app that I would envoke using gksudo, so what would happen would be, I would either use a menu item that I created using this command, gksudo gedit OR even using that same command from a terminal, gedit would come up and be frozen immediately, I would have to Force quit it and then my Gnome Session (gnome-panel and everything BUT the mouse) could NOT be interacted with. I could hpwever ssh into it and or go to another getty (tty1) and do stuff from the cli. I tried posting for help here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=454394
but no one came to help so I just did a resintall. I checked launchpad, I tried gogle for hours but couldn't figure it out, this was the first time I had to do a reinstall because of not knowing how to fix the issue.

ANyway, I am now SUPER HAPPY with everything in Feisty now, I am using Desktop Effects (compiz), I got my mythtv working pretty much (still need to figure out how to get it to display on my hdtv I have hooked to the tv out on my XFX GF 6200 OR I could also try the PVR-350 BUT superm1 (mythtv guru) said that doing it thru PVR-350 out is way hard) See the problem is that the tv can only do 1024x768 BUT my main monitor is at 1280x1024 so if I use twinview I am missing the lower half of my display on my hdtv, plus the tv is off to the right about 3 feet and up on a higher shelf about 1.5 feet so I really don't want my "work area" to be spread out between the monitor and the hdtv, I would rather set it so that mythtv when opened would just display on the hdtv and NOT my monitor as I want to be able to watch tv and work at the same time but currently I can't because mythtv opens on my main monitor. I guess what I am trying to say is that I got my vid card working and just need a little assistance with mythtv and tv out if you have experience with the way I want to set my setup up. (funny wording at the end of that sentence, he he, ha ha)