A Man and his Penguin

I’m posting this from the brand-new computer that I’ve just finished building.

Case: Coolermaster Elite
Motherboard: Asus M2A-VM-HDMI (integrated ATI graphics, grrr)
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4200
Ram: Kingston 1 gig DDR2 800MHz
Hard drive: Seagate SATA2 160gig HDD
DVD-burner: Pioneer PATA 20x DVD burner (chose PATA because it gets mapped to /dev/dvd like most Linux applications expect)
Chassis fan: Linda bought this herself. I asked her to get the cheapest one the shop had. She brought me one worth $35 with blue LEDs around the outside. The front of the case is basically a fine mesh, so when you turn the lights out you can see the lights inside the computer. Cool.
Operating System: Ubuntu GNU/Linux 8.04 beta

Hardy Heron is certainly a hardy little bird. It’s still in beta but it feels rock-solid. I now have every confidence in it working very nicely on Linda’s new computer. I’ll still dist-upgrade it to the release version, when it comes out. And I’ll have no hesitations in dist-upgrading my main computer to it at that time too.

Once I’ve configured everything, I’ll take it around to Linda’s place and set it up for her with her existing e-mail account. As this is the first computer I’ve built for someone else, I’m going to make up a case badge for myself so others can identify my work

Basic PC hardware: $609

Windows XP OEM license: $150

Your workmate deciding to have Ubuntu on her new computer: Priceless!

Thanks to those who left comments and e-mailed me directly about the last article (words of sympathy mostly!). I quoted my workmate $609 for an Ubuntu machine. She got a quote from Bob-bob-lick-his-knob of over $800 for a handbuilt Windows machine, with pirated XP!

I told her that I simply couldn’t install XP, because I didn’t have the know-how (I also don’t have a floppy disk drive). She asked "With the Ubuntu, I can’t use the same e-mail address, can I?". I reassured her that I can set up her existing e-mail address on Ubuntu. Her reply was "Well, what do I need XP for?".

She also wanted to know whether she could "still get Google" on Ubuntu, which of course you can

And she went to the bank and got me a $200 deposit. On Sunday morning I’ll head over to MCG and buy the parts. In the afternoon I’m going to a barbequeue, but in the evening I’ll start assembling the fella and then spend all of Tuesday customising and tweaking the Ubuntu install. I’m thinking I might put the Hardy Heron beta on it, and then when the release version comes out I’ll dist-upgrade to it. Hopefully, most of the packages have been frozen and won’t be changed at release time, saving me bandwidth.

I’ll also be smart enough to keep myself a login account, and go in through SSH whenever necessary to administer the machine. I’m happy for myself, because I’ll have another person using Ubuntu; and I’m happy for my workmate because this will end the merry-go-round of trouble she’s had with her Vista laptop.

One of the ladies who I work with has been having trouble with her computer.

First, she couldn’t get DVD Shrink working on the preinstalled Vista. So I suggested putting Ubuntu and k9Copy on. I did that, and it worked alright. But then, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, she decided to have somebody install Windows XP on the laptop. All hell broke loose - the person installed a weird pirated mashup of XP and Vista, inheriting the slowness of Vista, and causing instability in Outlook Express. Her DVD burner stopped working, too - not sure if it’s a hardware problem or an OS problem.

Bob ("bob, bob, lick his knob") put the idea of building a desktop computer into my workmate’s mind. I told her that I could build desktop computers, and I gave her a figure of how much the parts would cost for a rock-bottom, bargain-basement computer. I would build it for her without charging a cent for the labour. I said that it would be running Ubuntu.

At the end of the day, she said that she’d SMS me once she’d made up her mind. I got an SMS a few minutes ago, asking if I could install Windows XP on it.

A Windows XP OEM license is $149. Ironically, Vista is about $20 cheaper. But the biggest thing is that I would derive no pleasure out of the build, if it’s running Windows. It would cost her a fair whack of cash more, and I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to install Windows and make it suitable for use (drivers, codecs, useful software etc). I couldn’t guarantee that she won’t have the same problems if she’s using the same operating system, and I can’t bring myself to feed her addiction to Microsoft.

What should I do?