Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 10:25:40 -0500 From: "Scott I. Remick" <scott@sremick.net> To: freebsd-gnome@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What type of hardware are you using? Message-ID: <1txlbdgqnguq6$.140e4t3cicfl9.dlg@40tude.net> References: <1136994833.11930.62.camel@scotth.emsphone.com>
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I currently run on an Athlon 1.2 GHz I built like 5 years ago. It has an Asus A7V-133 MB, 512MB PC133 RAM, 2 ATA100 drives (a 20GB for the OS, and an 80GB for data), and a GeForce2 440MX video card. I tried to upgrade the RAM to 1GB recently but my new RAM wouldn't work reliably with the old (either by itself ran just fine). Instead of shelling out more money for a matched 1GB I decided to wait it out until my full upgrade... just not worth pouring more money into PC133 RAM. I too have noticed things feeling slower and slower in FreeBSD/Gnome over the years. I'm now on FreeBSD 6.0R and Gnome 2.12.2 and am quite addicted to Firefox/Thunderbird/Gaim. I can't wait to try some of Jeremy's suggestions elsewhere in this thread. I really wish my FreeBSD box could feel as snappy as Windows on half the hardware, but it's just not the case. I've never really figured out why, and have always just lived with it. Maybe in my newbie-ness I'm missing something blatantly obvious to the average FreeBSD-guru, but I've always suffered horrible UI lags and delays. Flipping through menus, tabs, windows, etc just isn't there like it is in Windows. I don't have the budget for it but I still ponder what my next PC will be. I admit to being at a loss for what I'd get. I know I'd want 1GB (preferably 2GB) of PC3700 DDR RAM. I know I want a socket 939 Athlon on an Asus motherboard, with an nVidia video card, and SATA drives. The things I don't know: - Do I run i386 or Amd64? Java, the nVidia binary driver, and Flash are important to me. As well as RealPlayer 10 and the ability to run other Linux apps. - Do I get a single-core or dual-core CPU? It seems like I want dual, since the pricing is very competitive, but I'm not clear on FreeBSD stability/support, or if there are i386 vs. Amd64 issues when going dual-core. - Do I get a MB with a supported-but-aging VIA chipset, or a modern-but-flakey nForce4 chipset? Most the current boards are nForce (Asus A8N-??? and so on) but it seems FreeBSD support for nForce is spotty. I can live with getting a separate card for network I suppose, but I have to be careful: most boards only have 2-3 PCI slots now, and I already will need one for my video-in card. I might need another for a 3Ware card if I want to go RAID in the future. Back when I got my current system, things weren't nearly this foggy about what to get for hardware. It seems the playing field has gotten more-difficult for the new hardware buyer, not easier.
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