Pentium II, Linux...hmmm...

[DJ Omnimaga]

Ah ok, yeah where you live I think it's like 2x colder than where I live. Even over here I would be scared of waiting the bus with my laptop during Winter. X.x

[Eeems]

Yeah stupid weather...

[DJ Omnimaga]

That said, even during Spring/Fall when it's not cold you can have surprises with weather, though X.x

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARetZYumzpU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARetZYumzpU</a>

[Eeems]

wow reminds me of tornado weather in the south, just more snow

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah, I can't imagine how bad the above would have been if there was an actual tornado. I think there was one in New York a few weeks ago. X.x

[Eeems]

Ok, so my brother hooked me up with a new motherboard/cpu/graphics card. My dad has some extra RAM that might work as well So it's now possibly faster then my laptop (as soon as I get the ram in ). I might also get a wifi card that will work and I have an ethernet card so if I have to I can go and set it up downstairs. I'll get some more stats later.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Lol nice . It still runs Linux, right? You should post the specs when ready.

[Eeems]

Ok currently, specs are 1GB of ram (motherboard can handle 3 GB (3 slots 1GB each) but I only have 4 256MB cards and 1 512MB card so I'm stuck with 1GB (512+256+256) for now). AMD Athlon processor, motherboard comes with built in overclocking, and there is an abundance of fans/heatsinks on it (3 of each if I remember correctly). I'm going to be installing XP on it as well as Linux mint, currently I have mint installed, but I'm going to have to do a re-install later when I get XP installed. The computer has an ethernet card, old US robotics Wifi (no drivers that work on linux anymore and I'm going to switch it out with another, better card when I get the chance, so when we find it, and at earliest this weekend). Two CD drives (32x speed) one disconnected (read only) the other connected (4x4x32) read/write. Old floppy drive, 2 built in USB ports (motherboard) and two more on a USB card. Disconnected backup drive thingamagig (really old and useless). I have an old monitor, old erganomic keyboard, oldish wireless keyboard, P/2 (or whatever that port is called) laser mouse. I've also got a usb splitter now for my laptop (4 ports) so I can plug in multiple stuff at once
So when I'm done, this thing is going to be faster then my laptop, but only half the RAM, so they will be around equal. I'm also hoping to get a new monitor so I can have it on my desk without fear of breaking my desk That way I can work with both my laptop and my desktop, so I can develop for both windows and linux at once if I use a SVN or just directly access one of my devices.
Oh and my desktop has 168.2GB of harddrive space or something like that (I'm confused about the number too). So it's a nice size compared to my 60GB HD that my laptop has, which I've partitioned to ~30GB for each OS (although windows got a few extra and linux has a few less due to 4GB swap space).
The desktop's fans are noisier then my laptop, which is not too loud, and not too quiet either. The fans are quieter then my dad's too so, it's quite bearable to be in a room with it on and not have to adjust to the noise level much.
I'm not sure if the BIOS supports booting from USB but I have a solution for that on a floppy, so I'm all set for if I want to boot from, floppy, CD, USB or HD, not network yet, although I might have to move it downstairs if we can't get wifi working at all. The CD drive is dated enough that it doesn't work with DVD's though, so I have to use my laptop for any DVD work, which I don't mind.
All in all, I'm really happy with this (Oh yeah I also have an oldish gamepad and joystick for gaming if I ever get the urge )

[DJ Omnimaga]

That's nice, I guess the only bad part will be CPU speed, but if you plan to play some older Windows games, sometimes CPU speed doesn't matter as much as RAM and video memory. I remember some 450 MHz min requirments games ran fine on my 350 Mhz P2.

[Eeems]

And since my CPU is faster then my laptops, and I can overclock pretty easy it shouldn't be that bad, as long as the games aren't too new.

EDIT: I'm currently using my computer now Although I'm hardwired in, only for updating stuff atm, the wifi card doesn't seem to play well with linux, no matter if I use the official linux drivers or the XP drivers with ndiswrapper (I can connect with the ndiswrapper ones, just can't do anything other then connect )

[DJ Omnimaga]

I heard it was a major PITA to get Wi-Fi to work under Linux.

[Eeems]

Well, on this one it wasn't (at least, with Linux mint) but we totally forgot the Mac address was blocked so we thought it wasn't working

[DJ Omnimaga]

Why is it blocked? Did your parents block plenty of stuff to prevent you from going on certain sites like SirCmpwn? Or does it just block some games. I'm illiterate about that stuff, so...

[Eeems]

No, when it was my older sisters computer (and still a pentium II) my parent's blocked the internet entirely for her, just not the local network. They did this because back then they didn't want us getting on the internet where they couldn't see us, now they don't care so much.

[Juju]

I heard it was a major PITA to get Wi-Fi to work under Linux.

Most Wi-Fi cards works out of the box, making them easy to configure them. Unless you want to configure it in command line. Others cards need special drivers without any open-source equivalents.