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‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On Saturday, March 6, 2021 9:59 PM, Dan Hitt <dan.h...@gmail.com> wrote: > I think that i will need to get new desktop hardware, so i'm trying to figure > out what to do. > > When i got my last hardware, one challenge was UEFI booting, iirc. After > dealing with it, i sort of lost track of what was happening in that arena. > However, i don't want to get involved with that again. > > I'm sort of thinking about getting a Dell Inspiron but maybe i should buy > from a linux vendor instead, such as 76? Presumably at least in that case at > least i wouldn't have to worry about the bios. > > I certainly would want to get something which supported 2 or 3 internal > disks, but i would also like to get something that could be booted from an > external usb drive. Does that make sense? > > Would it make sense to look for something where all usb ports are usb 3.0? > I've never used usb 3.0 at home, so i'm kind of unclued. > > In a way, i'd like to have something with 2 ethernet ports on the > motherboard, although i've found that usb-to-ethernet is adequate for my > purposes. > > And i think i'd like to stick with debian, but i would consider any free OS. > (So if i bought a Dell, i would add a disk drive or two, and boot off the > debian disk, probably removing the windows disk.) > > I'd appreciate any pointers or recommendations. Over the past 20 or so years, I've had great luck with the bottom-of-the-line tower type Dell servers -- they've been on the 'Net 24/7, and I've never had one fail. Obsoleted, sure. And disk failures from time to time (but that's what RAID1 is for). And Dell will sell the servers with no Windows OS on the disks, so you don't have to DBAN them to get the Microsoft bits out of your computer. The one in front of me right now is a Supermicro workstation. The Dells have been Internet servers, and the Supermicro is better for my desk because it's easier to futz with. All of my current boxes are pretty old, and they all have vanilla BIOSes. I have a Dell laptop that came with a UEFI BIOS, and it was no fun at all getting it to run Debian -- it may still be misconfigured for all I know. Looking for a genuine BIOS might be worth the trouble. All of the above (except the laptop) have multiple internal disks -- 2 in the Dells, 4 in the Supermicro. USB3 is a good thing. But if you don't need high USB bandwidth, USB2 still works. USB3, though, has a significantly higher power output. The Supermicro has two motherboard Ethernets; the Dells, one. On all of them, I've loaded up with disks and installed from a Debian netInstall CD. A blast from the past, but I hope it's of some use. -- Glenn English -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: ProtonMail wsBzBAEBCAAGBQJgRSKUACEJEJ/XhjGCrIwyFiEELKJzD0JScCVjQA2Xn9eG MYKsjDJ87Af8D5K+52Hl91GJcJKIRGKBMRqfxdlgAL3tO6ewa0V3bSCXhPBZ de/BW1cUke/WWoE/4VFZYUHj64qmZAicJG8VhNDd8YE9HFjhseOcZvaAyv4F 2JjVQU+SfA0bb4IghBC2fU7Jpl7wHc7exqVQuWg8eWlJ1vZDR+tjMqOt8Nxq aKHsfBaTPWsTPL/twcZIm3mC8+rjGEERRFoj9SufHf/+8AbJTch8QPkeHLBL SSkXQ5H9z6RUUjfoDl6DuLEEvSOtwACd5ye1hFUE5IpPiJ0ninIqLlVJQmk5 4CoB2ehMwchhE2NLPfOFjVdK4Ob1bwSEkxMz7JlTrSTsBcjIJ0wEwQ== =+Km9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
