Build a $200 Linux PC

Quoting:3. We weren't going to do Windows. This was another no-brainer. We like Windows, and don't want to downplay what it does for computers. But shelling out money for a Microsoft OS would have eaten up at least half our budget—and maybe more—and that would have torpedoed the project from the get-go. So we resigned ourselves at the outset to using a version of Linux that would both do the job and provide plenty of the software we expected to need at a perfectly placed price (in other words: free).

Because they had no choice if they wanted to keep it under $200, otherwise they would have chosen a "better" operating System.

> So we resigned ourselves at the outset...

Faint praise, indeed.

> So why was it a Linux PC?

They could also only afford 1 GB of memory. They made a point of the fact that this was adequate for Linux, but wouldn't be for Windows.

But note that he says it can do the job and save you money. For about 90% of consumers, that's all they're after. They don't care that some tech guy says Windows is better, they want something that will do the job. If I have to buy floor wax, I'm buying the cheapest one that will do the job, not the best one.

In the case of Linux you are buying both the best one that does the job, and the cheapest.

@tracyanne

+1

Rather than "buying", I would have said "getting".

I spent the afternoon working through issues in compiling the latest kernel, 2.6.35-rc6

Using it right now, in fact.

The last time I compiled a kernel was 2003, and it has only gotten easier.

Really Bob?

2.4 was a breeze, because there were 'few' issues to configure. You could configure it within about an hour.

Nowadays with 2.6, if I want to have a sensible configuration from scratch, it would probably take more than an hour if I have to read what everything is and what it does.

Anyway, I'm glad you mastered it!

Hk,

Seriously, all I did was set the CPU type and tick speed. Oh, and make ext3 "compiled in".

Everything else was already selected as "build module" and that is just fine by me, so that's why it took all of 2 minutes to configure.

Doing just that gave me a kernel that is working just fine on an HP laptop, including hibernate/resume.

But I tried compiling it for my Lenny desktop (compiled on the laptop due to libc6 issues), kernel panic, unable to mount root file system, etc. I just gave up, it's not like 2.6.30 doesn't have everything I need already.

If you want a stripped down kernel and want a great starting point, give pappy's kernel seeds a try http://kernel-seeds.org/ then all you have to do is a lspci -n copy and paste it over at http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/ and hit check and it will tell you what modules/drivers you need. Some very good information over at pappy's as well.

scan2006: Many thanks, I didn't know about those sites, which are great help!

Normally I take some 'pre configured kernel' distribution like Sabayon, and see what drivers it loads, but that's more work than the websites mentioned.

Bob: OK, I understand. Guess it's just me being abnormal, trying to strip out what's not needed. It does save a second at boot time however, not having to load modules (all what's needed is compiled in, just like in BSD) and not needing an initrd. Of course, that's no problem if hibernate works. But as it doesn't for me, I sometimes boot / shut down my computer 4 times a day, so every second quicker booting is welcome.