Apr 22 - new builds

I spent most of the day building & using the two new computers.  This gets easier each time I do it, for two main reasons:

1) each time there are fewer parts and cables

2) I'm using Linux as my base operating system.

On the first point, these builds don't even have any expansion cards.  Nope, the motherboard has onboard Lan, Video and Sound, all of which were separate boards when I started this oh-so-many years ago.  In fact, I could get away with even fewer parts if I wanted to.

The current parts list was as follows, per pc:

-- Lian-li case (they're the best and worth the few $ more)
-- motherboard
-- cpu
-- power supply
-- one hard drive
-- two dvd drives
-- two memory sticks

Assembly takes about 15 minutes, tops.  It takes as much time to get everything out of the shrink/bubble wrap.

Loading the operating system ?  With WinBlows, that takes quite a while, working from a Bootable CD.  With Linux, I simply plugged my external hard drive into the eSATA port and booted the machine.  Linux doesn't need any configuration.  It chooses the necessary drivers at boot time, so the same operating system worked for this as for my now 6-year-old existing pc.

Windows, which runs on VMware, doesn't even "know" that it's running on a different machine, let alone a different configuration.  Ah, the wonders of virtualization !

With both machines running, I then focused on one machine, setting up the empty hard drive.  I fussed about with that for some time, copying the Linux installation from the portable drive along with all the other stuff that I carry around -- pictures, music, emails etc. etc. that uses up about 350gb on the portable 500gb disk.

I also did some benchmarking using a Linux tool and found that the new machines run various operations in about 1/3 of the time.  Real world, it's hard to say if I'll notice anything with the Florida machine, but it's a world of difference from the Loring machine, that one being the same except with a slower bus speed.   That would have been a fogiveable mistake had I upgraded it sometime soon afterwards, but I just lived with it figuring that since the internet is that much slower anyway, what the heck ...

The other major difference with this new pc (s) is the noise.  I came upstairs this a.m. and thought that it had shut itself down.  No.  It's dead-quiet.  Wonderful !  The motherboard has fan regulation features that minimize the noise when there's very little happening (most of the time).  When you turn the machine on, it's quite loud in comparison, as the fans spin up and then they slow down and I can hear the wind -- but that's the wind outside of the house !

We had shrimp for dinner, as usual, but with Kale this time.  The Kale came from Debbie's garden.  It was interesting.  It doesn't reduce the same as spinach and has an interesting taste.  Sandy also tried roasting some, which Stef does.  Roasted, it tastes like potato chips but much better for you.

We were invited over to Harris and Debbie's to watch Life of Pie, but I declined, figuring that I'd fall asleep.  I would fall asleep watching TV after dinner on a good day, let alone one where I'm still behind.

Today -- I was going to go biking, but will leave that until tomorrow.  The next ride after that will be Saturday in Dawsonville.

Onward ...