# Book recommendation



## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Would any of you care to recommend a book on assembling computers, choosing the right and compatible components--for a beginner?

Is "Building a PC in Easy Steps" by Charlie Palmer something that would provide me enough basics to go from there?

All I have ever done so far is add RAM, a tuner card, and an ethernet card.
In other words I need beginner info.

Thanks in advance.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

There isn't really so much of "how" involved, as it's understanding which hardware you want in the machine.

In truth, the business has changed a lot the past few years. Laptops have become enormously popular and affordable, so the financial advantage to building a desktop machine doesn't exist like it used to.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Thanks Nevada for your response. While I do intend to have a laptop for use during travel I don't have one yet. Will plan on getting a state surplus one in January when I go through Topeka. Just something basic to get on the net in motel rooms and a few other things. I am pretty much a PC fan though. 

I did go to my local library for the aforementioned book and another similar one. 

I'm always a little intimidated when I open a computer and see all of the dangling wires just awaiting for something to be plugged into them. Would like to learn what their intended use is, etc. Also if and when the need arises some remove and replace repair info.

Thanks. Now best get off and go to reading.


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## bjba (Feb 18, 2003)

There are several websites that deal with building a PC, here are a couple to get started with:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13671
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/

I've been building my PCs since the 80s and heartily reccommend it for brave souls. The building is not difficult and choosing components is good fun.
I find Newegg to be a great source for components. http://www.newegg.com/
Have fun PC building is a great hobby.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Unless you want to build your own for the sake of learning, Its just not worth it anymore. You can get a white box computer assembled for not much more than what you can assemble it for using the same components. With the dropping cost of laptops the deals are in laptops now and not desk tops.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Yes I am wanting the learning process in order to be able to replace parts for repair or to make upgrades with added components. The two books I checked out have been very helpful and I believe will provide me with most of what I wish to know. 

The one book lists adding memory as a moderate task. Since I found that easy the tasks defined as difficult shouldn't be too bad at all. 

Both books have told about the extra power supply cables, etc. that just tend to hang there in a case. They were always a mystery to me.

Thanks for the replies. A blizzard is to arrive this week so I may have to disassemble one of my old computers and then reassemble it for the learning experience. 

I still haven't had to reformat anything yet so that will be a learning experience that the one book details. Might even look over Hermit John's shoulders and try some of the OS other than Microsoft. Seems he uses them aplenty.

Again my thanks for the information and sites. Windy in Kansas


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Windy in Kansas said:


> Yes I am wanting the learning process in order to be able to replace parts for repair or to make upgrades with added components. The two books I checked out have been very helpful and I believe will provide me with most of what I wish to know.


If you have a specific question, such as how IDE cabling protocols work, you can always post here or send a PM to one of us.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Thanks.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Windy in Kansas said:


> Might even look over Hermit John's shoulders and try some of the OS other than Microsoft. Seems he uses them aplenty.


Thats pretty simple. Pick you favorite linux live cd, stick it in your cdrom, set things in computer bios to boot first from cdrom and you are off to the races. Modern linux desktop is pretty friendly and shouldnt be hard to figure out. Different file system and you just have to learn where to look for things if searching "under the hood". I havent been to library (they have broadband) to download current versions, but over time Puppy and PClinuxOS are friendliest in my opinion. Mepis and Knoppix are good. Ubuntu probably has most users and not horrible though I have never been very fond of it. There is a tiny linux called Slitaz. Very fast and stable but maybe not quite as friendly, they did have to make compromises to get the small size. Austrumi is one I used to be quite fond of, about size of Puppy. Not nearly as good of community support though. Its more a one man band type effort. But there are oodles and oodles of choices of linux distributions out there and I dont really keep up with them anymore. Some website out there that used to have the most popular linux distribution downloads in a particular week. Popular doesnt always mean best, but in general the most popular distributions maybe have most bugs worked out of them and better community support. I think you have broadband so just keep trying different distributions until you find one you like. Many will seem very simular since many use either KDE or Gnome desktop. Puppy can be made to use those, but comes out of the box with Joe's Window Manager and ROX file manager. I like ROX as file manager. As long as it works and not too inconvenient to navigate, dont care all that much what window manager is used. Speed trumps eye candy every time in my opinion.

There are other operating systems besides windows and linux. But unless they lean heavily on linux for software like BSD, then you end up with limited software and limited hardware support. Shame too as there have been some real good ones in past like BeOS, but Microsoft and Apple pretty much stomped them out of existance. BE corporation won their lawsuit against Microsoft but were bankrupt by time case ended so Microsoft really won. An open source modernized version of BeOS exists (they named it Haiku since BeOS name is privately owned) but is alpha and depends on handful of developers so progresses slowly. They made it so some linux software can be compiled to run on it and also some old BeOS software.


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## Kari (Mar 24, 2008)

I also use and support clients running various distros of Linux. Right now I am evaluating 6 different distros for a 70 client business which is dropping MS due to excessive license costs.

Here is my quick take on some:

Ubuntu/Kubuntu: The most popular right now. I have a love/hate relationship with Ubuntu. Our proxy and file servers run Ubuntu server 8.04 and is great for these roles. As a desktop, well it is mixed bag. 

- Kubuntu desktop iteration of KDE is slow, buggy and is not appealing to me at all. 

- Ubuntu which uses the Gnome desktop is better, but I am not that fond of Gnome (more on this later)

- Fedora 12 running Gnome is quite good (as good as Gnome gets). The main drawback of Fedora is they are test bed of sorts for Red Hat and there can be a lot niggly things/bugs that really annoy me.

- Fedora 12 running KDE, better then Kubuntu, however same thoughts as above.

- Mandriva running KDE, very slick, much faster then Kubuntu. Mandriva has always appealed to the first time user and is the one I recommend the most for this purpose.

- PCLinuxOS: Middle of the road, nothing really different or appealing then any other distro. Overall though not too bad for a desktop.

Others:

- Puppy Linux: Horrible interface...looks like it got stuck behind in the Windows 98 era. Pluses include very fast and small in size. That being said, it is not a distro for anyone to compare to XP/Vista/Win7 due to it's dated looking interface.

- Ubuntu netbook remix: If you have a netbook or laptop, this is a great distro even though it is based on Gnome. The interface is slick, fast and easy for the beginning Linux user to get familiar with. I have this distro on my netbook and love it in this role. Many people also use it on their regular laptops.

So as you see, there are a lot of choices out there, and even if people do not agree with my comments, the best thing about Linux is...choice.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Taking it all in. Thanks for all of the replies and great information.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

http://distrowatch.com/

Lots of info and the popularity list. 

I will say if you have super fast computer, maybe PClinuxOS is nothing special, but if you insist on KDE desktop and have older or mediocre hardware, then it boots faster than most KDE distributions. Its also super stable. The people that put it together value stability rather than trying for bleeding edge stuff. 

KDE and Gnome desktops are bloated and nothing more than eye candy. Small "boring" plain jane windows managers and file manager combinations are much faster. Your choice if high end hardware worth the cost just to look pretty. For some its a top priority, for others not so much. And even many of more minimalist window managers let you set your own wallpaper. I have pic of tomato plant in my garden as my wallpaper. 

And as I mentioned you can have Puppy with KDE or Gnome. Some say Puppy with KDE is still faster than most distributions but I've never tried it, I just dont like KDE or Gnome though I do like some KDE affiliated software like K3B, but it can be run without KDE, just bloated cause you need lot KDE libraries that otherwise you wouldnt need. There are lot of modified Puppies out there for any taste, just they arent official releases and not officially supported though probably somebody on the forum can help with any problems.

You can also take a KDE distribution (or a Gnome distribution) and use a lightweight window manager and file manager rather than KDE (or Gnome). Its little more complicated to make such the default since scripts with KDE defaults have to be modified. And some distributions come with choices. Way back when I used Mandrake, it offered several choices. KDE was the default, but you could choose others either as one time deal or make them the default, think one called Black Box was the minimalist one offered at that time. Mandrake has become Madrivia few years back and no idea if such choice is still offered. But even if they dont, assume some other distributions do.


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## fratermus (May 11, 2009)

Karihwanoron said:


> Ubuntu/Kubuntu: The most popular right now. I have a love/hate relationship with Ubuntu. Our proxy and file servers run Ubuntu server 8.04 and is great for these roles. As a desktop, well it is mixed bag.


Both Gnome and KDE are massively bloaty; almost Microsoftian. 

My current desktop runs Xbuntu (ubuntu with xfce), though I am currently using lxde for minimal bling and performance. Decent compromise between raw speed (something like fluxbox or similar) and easy usability.



Karihwanoron said:


> - Puppy Linux: Horrible interface...looks like it got stuck behind in the Windows 98 era. Pluses include very fast and small in size. That being said, it is not a distro for anyone to compare to XP/Vista/Win7 due to it's dated looking interface.



{shrug} Run-in-RAM distros like Puppy, DSL, Tiny Core, etc are brutally fast and take up minimal space; great for netbooks. Not for everyone admittedly: they are scalpels in a world of 30-blade swiss army knives.

My larval page about linux is here.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

With state surplus laptops at $20 each I may just have to get more than one to try out some of the different OS as I have never used anything by Windows unless you count MS-DOS. I'd rather not have a computer than to deal with it.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

How old are these computers. Puppy runs well enough from P2 and up, say 300mhz and up. It will do ok on P1 puter, but you want like 40mb ram at bare minimum with full hard drive install. Of course its going to do better with 128mb or more ram. If you are running in ram rather than full install, then you want 256mb or better. Current 1.9ghz laptop I have has 500mb ram and no hard drive. I can watch movies full screen, full speed with no problem using Puppy. Its more computer than I need as laptop, since I mainly just use it to download stuff at library and store on external usb hard drive.


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## fratermus (May 11, 2009)

Windy in Kansas said:


> With state surplus laptops at $20 each I may just have to get more than one to try out some of the different OS as I have never used anything by Windows unless you count MS-DOS. I'd rather not have a computer than to deal with it.


Before buying I'd google to see if a particular laptop will boot from usb. The ability to boot from usb (with the unetbootin freeware utility) will make testing OSes much, much easier.

And since many smaller laptops don't have optical media (cd/dvd) it may be the only practical way to install the OS anyhow.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

I really don't know the age of the computers but doubt they too old before being replaced. If you know computers this may provide that info. http://www.da.ks.gov/Surplus/state/catalog/cpu/default.htm

P133-P850's doesn't mean anything to me. Each computer comes with a detailed print out so that a person can make a better selection. Contains software info, etc.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

These are pentium one, pentium two, and pentium three computers. In other words these are win95/win98/winME computers If you have any choice, get the 850mhz of course and if any choice dont get anything less than 500mhz. And you want something that memory can be upgraded. Puppy can do ok with say 128mb ram with appropriate swap file and full install to hard drive. Bigger distributions will need 256mb minimum and probably more. Not just for operating system, but much modern linux software running on that operating system will need significant ram.

None of these will probably have usb 2.0 and none will have bios that will support booting from usb. You can use a PLoP boot floppy and probably get it to boot from usb, I know with some experimenting I got my previous 366mhz laptop to boot full install of Puppy from usb hard drive, but it was SLOW. That old usb 1.1 is really slow transfering data. Basically only usable for connecting a usb modem.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

That website, said $20 *and up* so assume the old pentium one laptops are what they are selling for $20. In other words the old win95 era laptops. The ones barely adequate for win98. Puppy can be made to work with anything win98 can run on and thats the way to think about equivalents, but then you have to deal with modern software. Todays Firefox/Mozilla/Seamonkey require minimum of 64mb ram. They wont even load and run on anything less even if operating system is happy with less. Opera can be made to work on 32mb ram, but will crash if you try to have bunch open windows and such. Forget flash and anything like that. Remember what win98 was like on a pentium one with say 32mb to 64mb ram. And that was software designed for win98 back then. 

Oh I forgot to mention some of those antique laptops sometimes had oddball video chips and oddball sound that was never fully supported under linux. So you may not have sound and you may not get real great resolution having to use default vesa setup.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Wow, thanks for that great information. With my being used to a 2.7 Ghz computer I'm not sure that I could handle a really slow one. I had no idea that they would be that old and slow. I figured that they would swap out laptops about every 3 years. I may simply try to spot a good used one locally.

Thanks everyone for the replies with great information. I certainly may have to fully rethink my plans.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Let me say my previous laptop that was a pentium2 had 366mhz processor and 256mb ram (maximum amount ram it supported) was useful to me and I'd still be using it if video chip hadnt quit. You could hear it boot but nothing on screen and nothing when I plugged in an external monitor either.

It was fine for email and light browsing. I used it at library with wifi card to download stuff. Was amazed it even started showing video of weather forcast embedded on one webpage while I was surfing at library. On dialup at home it never had time to even try to load that. So dialup was big bottleneck. 

Still it was no 3ghz computer no matter how you figured it and no way going to run bloatware. It only did as good as it did because Puppy is small and fast.

My current laptop computer is a Panasonic toughbook with P4 1.9ghz processor and 500mb ram. I bought it for $54 off ebay minus hard drive and AC adapter. I had to look long time to find that fast of computer for that price. Unfortunately I am running Puppy from cdrom since this computer doesnt support booting from usb. A replacement hard drive caddy for it costs about as much as I paid for computer so wont be buying one. Thats probably why these toughbooks were selling cheaper than simular Dells/HPs, etc. I'll just boot from cdrom and then store stuff on usb hard drive. Battery came with it and seller said it was untested. Turned out to be fairly decent, give about 45 min to hour of use on a charge. I was quite happy of that. The official chargers are also kinda pricey and my old 3A adapter didnt have enough output to do anything, but I found a used charger for some IBM laptop with correct 16V and it had 7A output compared to Panasonic 5A spec. For $10 and works fine.

If you want complete computer about this speed, figure you will spend around $100 or more. Now say Dell or HP of simular speed, a replacement hard drive caddy can be literally a couple dollars. Yea go figure. Many of used computers on ebay that come from corporate background come without hard drive and power supply. Just way it is. They are afraid of people getting info off hard drive even if its erased so they just destroy the hard drives and guess too much work removing hard drive from the caddy so they toss it too.


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