Seeking OS-free, basic box to install Linux. Dell?

[ToddR]

Yikes. First post in a Linux forum. Be gentle.

I'm looking for an inexpensive box that I can dedicate to learning Linux on before I ultimately get the nerve to go dual-boot on my existing XP box. My wife's ancient box leftover from college (Pentium II, 64 MB RAM) isn't going to cut it in any meaningful way as a test box for me.

I would like to avoid paying the "Windows tax" at the time of purchase. I see Dell has some "open source" offerings that come with FreeDOS, Ubuntu, or even a bare-bones "server" that looks like an ordinary desktop available with no OS at all.

Would I have any problems with these in terms of doing frequent rebuilds to try out various distros? Surely there is nothing special about Dell's Ubuntu offering, for example, that would make it somehow more complicated to blow away its contents and install other distros?

Are there any other go-to sources for plain old boxes that work well with Linux? The major vendors don't seem to go out of their way to promote this path.

Thanks!

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Why not gather some components and build your own box, then throw Linux on it? You certainly don't have to buy Windows that way. I usually buy my own parts at NewEgg, but there are plenty of other places that sell all you would need to build your own.

[Dapper Dan]

Hi and welcome. I've bought three Dell "N" Series boxes over the years and have been very pleased with them. They come with no operating system on the hard drive and a CD of FreeDos. I've installed Linux to all of them and they have worked to my satisfaction.

[ls354]

My recommendation is more geeky but have you look at the Eee PC Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

[techieMoe]

If you're looking for a desktop, I'd recommend building it. If you want a laptop, Dell is as good as any with their N series.

[IsaacKuo]

My wife's ancient box leftover from college (Pentium II, 64 MB RAM) isn't going to cut it in any meaningful way as a test box for me.

I'd go ahead and try it out anyway. Bear in mind that a heavyweight desktop environment like KDE or GNOME will be reaaaaaaaaally slow, and hit virtual memory all over the place. If you can scrounge up some extra RAM, or are willing to try out a lightweight window manager, then things will be a lot zippier.

But in any case, what have you got to lose? I'd recommend the Debian netinstaller, assuming this old box has a network card (connected to the internet). This installer may not be the fanciest, but it will work fine with 64 megs of RAM.

There are various lightweight linux distributions designed for older machines like that, but you want a "normal" distribution which would be suitable for your more powerful main computer. Debian is one example of a linux distribution suitable for both. It's a little more work than buying a new computer, but you'll save money.

Are there any other go-to sources for plain old boxes that work well with Linux?

Not really. Most any "plain old box" will work fine with Linux, but I'm not aware of any particular "go-to" source for plain old boxes.

[ToddR]

Thanks for your responses.

I've been looking at the Dell Inspiron 530N, and even the entry-level PowerEdge SC440 server. It's kind of weird to spec out a "server" for around $400, but I assume it would make a good full-featured Linux desktop.

There is a local store (4-store chain) that would probably be a good place for me to look if I wanted to tackle doing a self-build. I've changed components over the years, but never tried to build a system in its entirety.

As for the old PII box I mentioned...I stumbled through a Gentoo install a couple weeks ago, but it didn't really work. I never had the fstab right and it never seemed to find the swap or something.

I then tried Gentoo on a semi-retired (and more recent) computer at work and got it running, but I specifically excluded a GUI. I will probably try again with the old box. I don't think I'll bother with a GUI on it either, though.

I'm still concerned that even if I get things installed, I'll be sitting there with a big "I've installed Linux! Now what!?" cloud hanging over me. Sure, I can play around with Firefox or T'bird, but that's nothing new as I already use those daily in Windows. I don't know what things to try in order to learn more. I guess I want to get Samba going at home so I can see our two XP boxes, and have it be seen by them. Maybe I'd see if I could get my digital camera to cooperate with a Linux box and manage my photos without using Windows. I imagine I could get along with OpenOffice or AbiWord/Gnumeric at home, where I've been getting by with Word/Excel 97.

Likewise on running a Linux box at work, sticking it in the corner somewhere...I'd want it to be visible to our Microsoft domain as extra file storage. Maybe try to host a network printer on it just for the sake of doing it. We have a SUSE box that someone set up for us four years ago that listens (syslog) to our firewall. It would be nice to replace that machine with one I built.

The shell prompt...it taunts me! Now what?

[IsaacKuo]

As for the old PII box I mentioned...I stumbled through a Gentoo install a couple weeks ago, but it didn't really work. I never had the fstab right and it never seemed to find the swap or something.

Gentoo isn't the easiest linux distribution to start off with. You might find something easier like Debian a more pleasant experience. Also, installing new software is much faster because you don't have to wait for your slow computer to compile the software.

I'm still concerned that even if I get things installed, I'll be sitting there with a big "I've installed Linux! Now what!?" cloud hanging over me. Sure, I can play around with Firefox or T'bird, but that's nothing new as I already use those daily in Windows.

That's really the thing, isn't it? The reason I switched from Windows to linux was because linux was more fun and could do things less annoyingly than Windows. In particular, most of the Windows software I used either cost money or was crippleware/nagware. It was just really annoying to manage software.

I loved Debian because there was so much software available and the computer managed the software rather than me. I could type in "apt-cache search game" and see a list of all software packages matching "game" (this list is really long). Then, it's just a matter of "apt-get install aaa bbb ccc..." to install packages aaa, bbb, ccc, and so on.

It's a little extra initial work to get something running efficiently on 64megs of RAM, but not a big deal if you're told what to do:

1) Do a default install (including the Desktop workstation suite)

2) On the first bootup, press <ctrl-alt-f1> to get to a text prompt (you don't want to log in to the default GNOME desktop since it will be very sluggish). You use <ctrl-alt-f7> to get back to the graphical screen.

3) Log in to the text prompt as root.

4) Use the command "pico /etc/apt/sources.list" to edit your sources.list file. Comment out any CD-ROM entries with "#", because it's annoying to be asked to insert CDs.

5) Use this command to install the lightweight window manager IceWM, xscreensaver, xfe, and a few fun games:

apt-get install icewm icewm-themes xfe xscreensaver sopwith xbomb atank xscorch crawl

xscreensaver is fun to play around with; it's just a set of screensavers, but there are a LOT of them, and it has the nice feature that it can be set to randomly switch screensavers every minute.

xfe is a lightweight file manager. Pretty basic, but it works.

6) Go back to the graphical login screen with <ctrl-alt-f7>, and press <ctrl-alt-backspace> to reset X, if necessary. Then select the session type "IceWM" and log in. This will log you into a lightweight IceWM session. IceWM lacks the bells and whistles of a heavyweight desktop environment, but it's adequate for just running software and such.

[drl]

Hi.

...I've been looking at the Dell Inspiron 530N, and even the entry-level PowerEdge SC440 server. It's kind of weird to spec out a "server" for around $400, but I assume it would make a good full-featured Linux desktop. ...

I bought a Dell PowerEdge SC1420 a few years ago for a compute-bound project. I don't think I would call it a "desktop" -- it's too beefy for that. It is physically bigger than most desktops I've seen, a bit noisy, even bigger than an older IBM NetVista (themselves having the same footprint as the largish IBM Intellistations). It would lack some features for, say a gamer, no high-end video, no sound -- it really is a server. Memory is ECC and so is quite expensive. For the price, however, it is very good, fast compute, good throughput -- gigabit ethernet, so it and another gigabit box through a switch moved data quickly. New models would be even faster than the one I bought, likely with dual or quad core, higher speed internal data motion.

After the project was completed, I used mine for virtual machines. I had around 20 OSs installed, including some non-Linux like Solaris, BSDs, Windows. I had only enough memory for simultaneous running of 1/2 dozen or so. It makes a good experimental platform -- make a mistake? reload from the snapshot -- less than 30 seconds to recover an 8 GB virtual disk from fatal errors.

Would I buy another? It was good enough so that it would be one of the top contenders when I compared boxes again.

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

[a12ctic]

I highly suggest the shuttle KPC =]

KPC | A simple PC made for you

it comes with foresight, one of the more interesting distributions and its very affordable and very sleek.