Wal-Mart shipping PCs with Lindows preinstalled

[Charles Steinkuehler]

> >You have to remember, most of the people on this list are
> >basically building their own from preexisting hardware.
>
> Is this true?  I don't know you guys so I'm not sure.  I
> bought a Dell computer that had windows and installed linux
> myself.  The only mod I've done is yanking out the old
> winmodem and replacing it with a hardware modem.
>
> What's the consensus? Are you guys building your own out
> there?

A quick inventory of machines currently online in my 1-room office
yeilds:

self-constructed:
3 Windows mini-towers (Athlon/PIII)
1 Windows "surf-board" (case-less PC for Hardware testing) (PII)
3 linux 4U rack-mount servers (AMD Athlon)
1 linux firewall (pentium-class)
1 linux web-server (486-DX2) http://lrp.steinkuehler.net (see bottom of
page)

Branded:
1 HP Vectra (P75) linux mail-server
1 Compaq (P90) slink development box for linux firewall
3 DEC PWS-500A (Alpha systems) running linux
3 Intel 1U INS1020's upgraded to RedHat linux 7.2 (Celeron)

So...I guess it's about 50-50 for me, with a slight bias towards
"home-brew", at least as long as you don't count the additional 3 HP
Vectra's (also P-75's, and currently off-line) I use to build test
networks when debugging firewall stuff.  :-)

Charles Steinkuehler
charles at steinkuehler.net

NOTES:
- All "Branded" machines were either "Comp-Geek specials" (HP, Compaq,
and INS-1020's), or re-purposed business machines (ie I got the DEC
Alpha systems when MS dropped Alpha support for Win2K).

-  I have so many Windows machines because I design hardware (mainly
pushing FPGA gates around), and currently the design software, as well
as the driver software for the hardware are all windows based.  The
stuff I work on is mainly digital video editing equpiment...see:
http://www.videotoaster.com/ for details.