Dont buy Gateway or Compaq, the software conflicts will give you migraines for years to come. I've a Gateway and it's horrible, the worst computer I've ever had(well other than that 133 mhz "Packard Hell," but I don't really consider that a computer anymore).

Motherboards come stock with dos on them if im not mistaken. Its no diffrent then installing winows on a store bought computer.

Dracon wrote:

...or prehaps even upgrading to a 1028 MB Computer...

That would be 1024MB of RAM, not 1028. I just went from 768MB to 1GB (2 512MB slabs of SD-RAM), and I actually think Windows XP Pro now has enough memory to run stable for weeks instead of days - heck, even Win98se under Linux should do great now! =)

yes - but do you have SETI@home, KaZaaLite, an FTP server, a BadBlue webserver, a MySQL daemon, DreamWeaver MX (a notorious resource hog), Eudora email client, Blender, Photoshop 7.0, *and* three different browsers open all the time? =) I need the 1GB of RAM just keep things going in Windows for the few programs I truely need (mostly only Kazaa and Blender lately - everything else I can do under the Linux partition when I don't need those two programs specifically)

=)

Scoobert wrote:

Why do you need them open all the time?

Since my job is doing programming and design, I tend to use all these tools throughout the day.

I always leave an blank desktop when i plan on leaving the computer for more than 3 or so hours.

Having these programs already open and running means I can get to work immediately, instead of having to wait for each app to open. Just a small effort to increase efficiency. About the only time I shut everything down is when I want to de-frag the drive, or install something that requires a reboot.

running xp requires more ram :P Therefore running a game on xp uses more ram ;)

Scoobert wrote:

Dracon Dracon, your still hitting the companys that will give you computers that will be utterly worthless in notime. If you dont want to build your own(recomended) then just go Vaio. I have one and have never been happyer with a computer. I have only had one problem for the 1 and a half i have had it and that is that the hard drive broke, but i think thats cercumstantiol. Besides that, it has been a great computer, nice looking case, and i dont have to say its a "Gateway, Compaq, IBM, HP(their just exspensive compaqs), or something like E-Machine. My recomendation is to build your own, its remarkably easy. Just simply place the wires in the only place they will fit, and boom, you have your own. Dont go mac for games, just not what your wanting. Build your own if you want the most bang for your buck.And if all else fails, buy a sony vaio.

True, Scoobey! I built my own- a CheckerCube- and it's really compact and can store as much as a regular computer. Now, all CheckerCube is, is a computer compacted to size ( like a regular PC without empty space that collects dust) - roughly the size of 2 Gamecubes put together ([ ][ ]) check it out at http://www.checkercube.com/store/2215.html

-wolf01

I was being sarcastic about the first part :) The X-Box proves linux is superior to Win2k for games. There are so many people modding their xboxes to run linux, if win2k was so good, very few would.