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The Unix Hardware Buyer HOWTO
Eric Raymond
| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revision 3.0 | 2004-02-21 | Revised by: esr |
| Power-protection stuff moved to UPS HOWTO. DIMM memory is gone. Tape drive don't make sense any more. Lots of the theory from my "Ultimate Linux Box" articles now lives here. | ||
| Revision 2.4 | 2003-02-22 | Revised by: esr |
| URL fixes. | ||
| Revision 2.3 | 2002-08-06 | Revised by: esr |
| Buying at the low end isn't a lose anymore. I recommend Athlons. Nuked the section on video standards, EDID takes care of all that now. Also removed the section on older memory types. And keyboards, as the "ergonomic" ones all vanished along with the 1990s carpal-tunnel scare. | ||
| Revision 2.2 | 2002-08-05 | Revised by: esr |
| New section on DVD drives. | ||
| Revision 2.1 | 2002-07-08 | Revised by: esr |
| Corrected Kingston URL. Various small updates for the last year. This HOWTO is much more stable than it used to be. | ||
| Revision 2.0 | 2001-08-09 | Revised by: esr |
| Major update. Revisions based on Ultimate Linux Box experience. Caches are on-chip now. DDS4 tape drives are here. 486 machines, CD caddies, and most non-DDS backup technologies are gone. | ||
| Revision 1.1 | 2001-06-13 | Revised by: esr |
| Mid-2001 update. | ||
| Revision 1.0 | 2001-02-06 | Revised by: esr |
| Initial revision; but see the history in the introduction. | ||
- Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Overview of the Market
- 3. Buying the Basics
-
- 3.1. How To Pick Your Processor
- 3.2. Bus Wars
- 3.3. One Disk or Two?
- 3.4. Getting Down to Cases
- 3.5. Power Supplies and Fans
- 3.6. Motherboards
- 3.7. Memory
- 3.8. Monitor and Video
- 3.9. Keyboards and Mice
- 3.10. Floppy Drives
- 3.11. CD-ROM Drives
- 3.12. DVD Drives
- 3.13. Sound Cards and Speakers
- 3.14. Backup devices
- 3.15. Modems
- 3.16. Printers
- 3.17. Power Protection
- 3.18. Radio Frequency Interference
- 4. What To Optimize
-
- 4.1. First, add more memory
- 4.2. Bus and Disk speeds
- 4.3. Disk Wars: IDE vs. SCSI
- 4.4. Tuning Your I/O Subsystem
- 5. But What If I'm Economizing?
- 6. Noise Control and Heat Dissipation
- 7. Special Considerations When Buying Laptops
- 8. How to Buy
-
- 8.1. When to Buy
- 8.2. Where to Buy
- 8.3. Computer Fairs
- 8.4. Mail Order
- 8.5. Computer Superstores
- 8.6. Other Buying Tips
- 9. Questions You Should Always Ask Your Vendor
-
- 9.1. Minimum Warranty Provisions
- 9.2. Documentation
- 9.3. A System Quality Checklist
- 10. Things to Check when Buying Mail-Order
- 11. After You Take Delivery
- 12. Software to go with your hardware
- 13. Other Resources on Building Linux PCs
| Next | ||
| Introduction |
