Lemur's New Rig

Okay, my Core2Duo has served me faithfully for about six years. I'm about to get a no-strings-attached check. It's time.

Here's my build proposal. Criticism and suggestion is welcome.

CPU: i5 (Haswell)
Cooler: CM Hyper 212
Mobo: MSI Z87-G45
RAM: 16 gigs of medium-fast GSKILL
Case: NZXT H630 CA-H630F-M1 "Silent" (let's hope)
Power supply: Corsaid AX series AX760 760W
Video card: ASUS R9270X-DC2T-2GD5 Radeon R9 270X (seems like the sweet spot of price/performance)
SSD: SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE500BW 2.5" 500GB
Data drive: Seagate Hybrid Drive ST2000DX001 2TB

Then I'm updating monitor and wireless network dongle, but the above parts form the core of the new beast.

Probably won't pull the trigger for a week, so please feel at ease scrutinizing my choices.

Ya don't wanna cough up another $60 for the i7 Haswell? You gain 2MB of cache as well as Hyperthreading, giving you a total of 8 "virtual" cores... You could drop down to 8GB of RAM and it'd probably be a wash pricewise. Should 8GB not be enough, that's a little bit easier of an upgrade than the CPU. :shrug:

Hmm, the most demanding tasks I do on the PC are typically single thread, or close enough that it makes no nevermind. SO really the only benefit I'd see would be the extra cache.

And then there's the flexibility. Overclocking has been part of what kept my old C2D relevant even as games got more demanding. An unlocked "k" i5 is $240, whereas an unlocked i7 is $340.

So ... it's more like $100 for more cores and a bit of cache.

Also, the i5 seems to be the default gamer chip. I AM A HERD ANIMAL.

Also: Value of >4 cores in modern gaming is questionable from a price/performance angle..

I don't know about this one in particular, but after a faulty GPU and a Notebook with all kinds of small problems (it was already a replacement for the one I got first, which had a loose mobo battery dangling around inside), I do not really trust MSI a lot anymore.
YMMV of course.

Hmm. The mobo I picked has 134 customer reviews averaging 4 stars on NewEgg. But you're right, I don't think of MSI as a particularly great manufacturer. Much more comfortable with Asus, for example.

I'm guessing I have about a week before the cash-monies arrive. Plenty of time to consider.

I still think 16GB of RAM is overkill. Personally, I'd take 8GB and put the money somewhere else. I'm a fan of the i7 processors, but maybe you could dump it into your GPU instead.... or just save the money?

But it's your rig, build it as you see fit. :yes:

I've heard about the comeback of AMD with R9 270X too and I'm curious about how they fare against GTX 780s, for example.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Hmm. The mobo I picked has 134 customer reviews averaging 4 stars on NewEgg. But you're right, I don't think of MSI as a particularly great manufacturer. Much more comfortable with Asus, for example.

I'm guessing I have about a week before the cash-monies arrive. Plenty of time to consider.

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55% gave 5 stars, I assume the rest had some sort of problem with it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For example that the delivery came one day late. :rolleyes:
Do American customers also consider this in product ratings sometimes like that somehow affects the quality of the product?

I agree about 8GB being enough, for now, but if you just leave 2 slots open you can easily upgrade that later, as Xiahou says.

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Originally Posted by LeftEyeNine

I've heard about the comeback of AMD with R9 270X too and I'm curious about how they fare against GTX 780s, for example.

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The 270 is much cheaper and slightly slower than a 780. There's a kinda-sorta ranking of the current-gen cards over here at Anandtech.

You should really invest into the future and go for the NVidia 4K gaming option with PhysX! ~;)

The latter is actually quite nice in some games and I like how I never need to update NVidia drivers beyond a certain point where they actually work worse with older cards in my experience. And I never noticed any problems with newer games and an older driver that works fine with my card. Not to forget that AMD has a history of reducing default driver graphics quality to gain more performance. Their AF is more likely to produce flickering etc.

I know some people really like AMD and I would also prefer to have some more competition but sadly they really struggle to keep up quality-wise IMO. If you're happy with them, go ahead though.

Hmm, I've always been an AMD guy when it comes to graphics, but that's not a religious thing, more of an accident of timing. Each time I've built a new rig (counting back, this will be my 3rd ground-up build over the past, eh, twelve or thirteen years or so), AMD/ATI has simply had a nice point on the price/performance curve.

But I'm hardly married to 'em. Can you refer me to any articles or discussions about the Nvidia side of things, and why they're in a better position? I like to learn.

And why's everybody hatin' on my 16 gigs of RAM? It's cheap enough, and it would be nice to have the acres of living space for some work-related stuff. (I prolly should have clarified that the new Lemur Rig will also serve as my work machine, in an unofficial capacity. IT provides laptops, but I use them for email and time clocking, no more. They're your basic Dell cheapo-lappie, and I don't like to do real work on 'em. I have an unofficial sanction from the Director of IT to use my own gear, so long as I don't talk about it around the Powers That Be.)

I laughed because it seemed biased at first but it seems to provide a good overview with links to less biased sites:

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2010/11...image-quality/

For some reason all of the magazines that discovered the problems are German, I originally read about it on ComputerBase.
I'm also not sure how it has developed, I just trust AMD a little less to provide the same graphics per default or without workarounds now.

Not to forget that most of the time a game needs a patch to remove artifacts or other graphical issues, it's related to AMD cards, at least as far as I hear about it/perceive it. I have no statistical data and am not aware of anyone who has, it's just an accumulated feeling of all the times I thought "oh, it's just the AMD guys having artifacts/problems again", which may be related to my choice of favourite games of course. :shrug:

nice rig.

i'm with you on 16gb, why the hell not. :D

only difference i would have gone for is the crucial m500 ssd's, but that is preference nothing more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Husar

I laughed because it seemed biased at first but it seems to provide a good overview with links to less biased sites:

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2010/11...image-quality/ [...]

I'm also not sure how it has developed, I just trust AMD a little less to provide the same graphics per default or without workarounds now.

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Hmm, okay, trying to wrap my brain around this. Not helpful that the blog post is three years old ... and the blog post gets roundly booed in the comment section ...

I guess this was to do with image quality and the 10.10 Catalyst drivers?
@Husar, is there anything more recent to which you can refer me?

To illustrate the price/performance curve, here's the current lineup of cards ranked by price in USD$ (and note that I intend to game in 1080):

https://i.imgur.com/7DABvpj.png

No, there is nothing more recent and I doubt people check it thoroughly with every driver update.
AMD drivers may use normal settings now, it just shattered my trust in them to do that behind peoples' backs to look better in performance rankings.

I use a GTX 660 (slightly overclocked, see below) and play at 1920x1200 in a proper 16 to 10 format as the lord intended. I don't have any demanding shooters beyond Crysis (which worked mighty fine on this card with High or Very High settings when testing hastily from a few old savegames) but it runs pretty much every game I play (at the moment not the most demanding ones as those don't interest me a lot, think Mafia 2, Wargame ALB, World of Tanks, also Shogun 2 etc.) very well. The R9 270X seems to be 14% faster in games (at FullHD, 4x AA, 16x AF, compared to a normally clocked GTX 660) according to ComputerBase.

The GTX 660Ti is rated as 3% faster than the Radeon and the GTX 760 as 4% faster (average rating over all tested games that is). That's definitely not worth a 50$ markup for the 760, I agree there.

This is the card I have, it's overclocked to get closer to a 660 Ti and the cooler is just great, silent and cools it very well: http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-PCI-E...0+Ti+Windforce

The 660 Ti seems to be hardly available and have high prices, I got lucky at the time and got mine (still not a Ti though) at a local store for a lower price than non-overclocked ones from other manufacturers. So maybe don't just stick to Newegg whatever you do anyway.
It seems like the Radeon is a nice choice, but an NVidia card still gives me flying debris and other physics in Mafia 2 and some other games. ~;)
In the latter matter, the dark side is also calling you with PhysX-porn: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...post2053563021

Well, I'd say the part I am least settled on is the GPU, so I'd love to hear suggestions.

Like I said, I intend to game in 1080.

I want quiet. I want low driver hassle. I want something that's not going to need replacing for at least a couple of years. (Swapping out the GPU is always my first step in nursing 6–7 years out of a rig.)

I'm open to suggestions. Talk to me!

I don't think the GTX 660 is going to last several years, and neither may a card that is only 14% faster, although it depends on what you understand by "last". Personally I abhorr Medium and Low setings somewhat because they often look worse than High Settings on older games my hardware can run. So it ends up like I have the same raw processing power but games start to actually look worse once I have to go down with the settings...

And the reason I feel nothing you can buy now will last for a lot of years is that we just got new consoles with a lot more power than the last ones. The old console generation seemed to slow down the development in terms of GPU demands for a few years, if all those incoming console ports will be adjusted for the more glorious new generation capabilities, we may just see rising demands on the PC again until the consoles grow old and reach their maximum potential again.

I only have experiences with midrange cards because they're usually all I can or want to afford and I am pretty sure that cards that cost twice as much don't last twice as long, so yeah, midrange is where I usually go.

The R9 270X is also available with the Windforce cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125476
Funny story, I clicked on the rating and the first reviewer says AMD need to tweak their drivers and assumes everybody has to. Well, I'm currently on 306.97 and 331.82 is the newest driver but I haven't noticed any problems so far. In the past I have noticed that when I upgrade my NVidia drivers once a new generation of cards has been released, it usually causes more trouble than it improves things.

One could assume they do this on purpose to make people buy newer cards but maybe they also just focus on the new cards and ignore any effects their tweaks have on older ones. As long as my old driver doesn't cause any trouble, it's fine with me though, because it saves me the hassle of having to swap drivers every month. The often-promised fps increases never really convinced me when I tried a new driver, or were for games I did not own anyway, so YMMV again.

So that's my NVidia driver philosophy, regarding AMD I only have rather unfond memories from very long ago, I've always thought about switching back to them and then always decided for NVidia again in the end after researching the power, costs, potential issues and so on.

I'm not fully in the loop though as I do not plan to replace anything soon and I do have a Phenom II still. Would be nice to have something that guzzles less energy (the power saving stuff does not work anymore since Vista or 7 when Microsoft changed something there, it's constantly running at 4x3GHz) but Intels always scare me away with the sheer cost of Mobo,CPU and the required DDR 3 RAM, even if you go for a midrange config, you have to spend easily 350-400€ and more, thanks Intel monopoly!

Meh that blog post about visuals is much ado about nothing. It's an apples to organes comparison with people getting upset that the exact number of "points" tied to a label is changed between one driver revision and the next. AFAIK the AMD AA levels correspond to a slightly more expensive algorithm than Nvidia AA levels do for a slightly better visual quality if you were to compare points for points. Which, as you can now see is by definition is as apples to oranges. So meh.

Get the card that is a good deal/steal now, and if you must do yourself a favour and buy a better monitor. That will put the marginal increase you get in a hypothetical scenario (as you'll know, you can manually configure the exact level of "points" for each setting anyway) in perspective for a real and undeniable improvement in fidelity. Then you can indulge in the next obsession of colour calibrating and correcting your screen... ~;)

Didn't include the monitor on the parts list up top, but I am, in fact, buying a nicer monitor than I have ever owned. My first non-TN panel.

That's right, homies, I'm moving to the IPS side of town.

Some people reported quite some flickering of textures, which was one of the main problems with those ATI drivers, I wouldn't call it marginal if it gets on your nerves a lot while you play. Like I said, it may not be an issue anymore, I just trust them a little less.

IPS sounds good, my iPhone 4 has the best display I own, but my old 24" Benq TN monitor is a very good second. Next one should be IPS as well for me, hopefully also in 16:10.

Can't find the source, but I recently read a system builder (Origin? Maingear?) talking about failure rates of videocards in their 2013 RMA process.

As I recall, he was saying that Nvidia cards failed at a two-point-something percent rate in their rigs, and AMD cards failed at a three-point-something percent rate.

Now, this was a boutique PC builder, so doubtless they're pushing the newest, biggest, and (literally) hottest cards. I expect mid-range cards like I'm considering would fail much less often.

Oh yes, NVidia cards are cooler and use less energy in some (comparable) ranges, which may not be a concern for you but I already pay way too much for my electric energy and that certainly influenced me since I was also eyeing and ATI card at the time.

Hmm, I wonder if the Litecoin crash is going to mean a whole lotta discounted R9 videocards hitting the market. I hope it does—couldn't time out better for me.

Did some late-night reading about the mid-range cards. Hard to get clarity on what's going to work best—the info about the 270x, 280x, 760, 770 ... maybe I shouldn't do GPU research right before bed ...

Well, forget all of that, the post-Christmas sales swayed me, shaving maybe $150 off the overall cost of the build. I done pulled the trigger, and ordered the parts from NewEgg.

IT IS DONE.

Now I can switch from obsessing over the build to obsessing over the shipment tracking.

If y'all want unboxing and/or build pics, I can oblige. Since I only do a new build every 6–7 years, this kinda feels like an event.

Pictures or it didn't happen when it does.

Changed my mind about a number of the components, when all was said and done.*

Not least of which was the case. Wound up going with a Carbide 540 Air.

http://youtu.be/3x4JsOoySdQ




*In fact, looking at the original list I posted, the only thing that stayed the same was the SSD from Samsung.

Whoa, check out Lemur's new gig!

sorry, i skipped over the second half of the thread, but did anyone ask you what you were using the PC for?

I ask because this is pretty much the main idea that you'd build your rig around.
A gaming PC is different to a design+production workstation, which is different to a server, which is different to a crypto-currency miner, which is also different to the dual-purpose email reader/paperweight.

But you've made the purchase already, so i suppose it doesn't matter too much at this point anymore.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Changed my mind about a number of the components, when all was said and done.*

Not least of which was the case. Wound up going with a Carbide 540 Air.

http://youtu.be/3x4JsOoySdQ




*In fact, looking at the original list I posted, the only thing that stayed the same was the SSD from Samsung.

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We all hate and despair and love that perfect haircase in equal measure.

But seriously, have you worked on the build yet? That case looks huge.

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Originally Posted by Raz

what you were using the PC for?

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In order of PC-taxing activities:

• Gaming
• Transcoding video for work
• Work (mostly in MS Word and Outlook, I know, I know)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

[H]ave you worked on the build yet? That case looks huge.

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The case really isn't that big. Fat, but short. The way I like my men.

I will confess that I am going to cheat on the build. My Wisconsin BFF is a guy who ran his own IT company for years, and has built hundreds of rigs. I'm going to supply the beer, and maybe open some boxes. He can whip a machine together in the time it would take me to figure out the pin-out for the front panel. So yeah, I am a lying cheater and a cheating liar, and Imma let my buddy do the build.

Will post pics!

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Originally Posted by Lemur

The case really isn't that big. Fat, but short. The way I like my men.

I will confess that I am going to cheat on the build.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4by3GHehlbA
Phony!

What a day. Seriously, I was having one of those, I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane kinda days.

Drove through a whiteout blizzard to work, only to find that 80% of the staff didn't make it in. Felt like a complete idiot. Who commutes from Wisconsin to Chicago in one of the worst storms of the year? This idiot, that's who.

Seriously, today I was making Theon Greyjoy-level bad decisions from start to finish.

Ahem.

Anyway, me and my Nerd Prime buddy met up in my dining room, and we put together the new rig. I told Nerd Prime about how I was cheating by using him, which resulted in him forcing me to do an awful lot of the assembly and wiring myself. I blame all of you for shaming me.

Anyway, pics were promised, so here they are:

The Lemur rig build, live, in 3D, colorized, and with a happier ending.

Glad to hear you had a safe trip :)
The "rig" looks very nice; keep us updated on how it performs :2thumbsup:

Where is the Linux, Lemur?!

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Originally Posted by Tiaexz

Where is the Linux, Lemur?!

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Wasn't planning on loading this up with hippie commie Linux anytime soon. It's a gaming and work machine, both of which do well under Windows.

But hey, should the need arise, there's always a nice distro out there ...

There is no way the Org will fit on that thing. You need more disk capacity!

The Great Migration has begin. It's like Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery.

http://youtu.be/CHps2SecuDk

Putting new 2 terabyte drive in NAS. That means migrating everything from the 1 terabyte drive across the bus. This has been an interesting challenge. (Yes, I know there are many other ways I could have moved 530 gigs of home server data, but forcing the Synology to do it across its own bus was by far the fastest way.)

Now shuffling things around. Wife wants my old gaming/work PC for her own, so I need to decide which hard drives go where, and what will happen to the old machine. I'm kinda leaning toward a fresh install of Win7 to minimize any trouble from her "new" PC, but there's something to be said for just cleaning up the current install.

Then moving some sort of HD into the new Cube, finishing cleaning up the home office, and finding appropriate desk space for everything.

I could also use this moment to back up the years of photos and music locked into my long-obsolete G5 ... but that seems like a lot of work for a Sunday.

-edit-

Man, I have to say, Synology really has their software dialed in. That could have (should have) been a lot more painful. In short order:

1. Put in new HD, was offered to extend current volume or create new one.
2. Since my intent was to get rid of the old HD, told it to create "volume 2" using storage manager.
3. Used backup utility to move absolutely everything from volume 1 to 2.
4. Re-created shared folder structure at the top level of volume 2.
5. Used file station to move everything back into the correct places.
6. Told the NAS that I wanted it to dismount volume 1.
7. And then everything just ... worked.

Honestly, I expected more blood and gore and pain and lamentation.

I like your SSD. I would also have gone for the I7. The 16 GB of RAM is good. What is medium speed for you? 1333 MHz?

Instead of an i7 you can also get a Xeon I hear. A Xeon is apparently a cheaper i7 without the on-board graphics (that you don't need for gaming anyway).

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Originally Posted by Myth

I would also have gone for the I7. [...] What is medium speed [RAM] for you? 1333 MHz?

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Y'all are a bunch of i7 snobs.

In this instance, I meant 1600. Any faster and the price gets nutty.

-edit-

Forgot to mention, I am also experiencing Windows 8.1 for the first time on this rig. Speaking as a Lemur whose experience has been limited to Win7, OS X, and (recently) the Cinnamon desktop in Linux Mint ...

... this interface is kinda infuriating. I mean, I'm a little bit of a nerd, so I can figure it out, but I have feels for the normal user.

Seems like almost every screen has a different metaphor for navigation. And the default setting do not nudge you toward the Microsoft apps—they buck and shove and grunt and basically try to force you into the Microsoft apps, many of which you really don't want to touch. All of these traps can be undone, if you have a vague idea of what you're doing.

But for the average user? Like Bill Clinton, I feel their pain.

Dude, why would you inflict Windows8 on yourself? :no:

I've pointed all the hapless Win8 users I know towards Start8. It seems to at least make the unbearable bearable. Now, if they'd just listen to me in the first place and not get Windows8....

That's the most useless extension there is, it's like using a wheelchair when you could learn to walk instead. :whip:

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Originally Posted by Husar

That's the most useless extension there is, it's like using a wheelchair when you could learn to walk instead. :whip:

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I think that's a more apt description for Windows8 itself. Microsoft has removed functionality in order to meet their arbitrary decision to (attempt) unify the desktop & tablet experience. There's no valid reason for removing the Start menu. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

There's no valid reason for removing the Start menu. :shrug:

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Sure there is. Microsoft is getting back at us for joking all these years about "Why do we have to click the 'Start' button to stop the computer?"

Surely they were saying, "Who's laughing now, wise guy?" when they released Win8.

For the record, I think Win8 is a turd. My latest annoyance regarding Win8 comes from wondering why I couldn't play a DVD on my computer with Windows Media Player. After searching Microsoft's knowledgebase, they apparently decided that hardly any PCs these days have DVD/Blu-ray drives, hence it was easier to remove the functionality to annoy everyone than it was to leave it in there. They made a lot of bad assumptions about their market with Win8. I'm also THRILLED that they own Skype now. My user experience with that went from nary a problem to problems just about every time I try to use it. Buying Win7 is looking better and better every day. :wall:

1600 is great, i have 16 gigs of that, you can't utilize faster ram for gaming anyway, your motherboard and/or GPU will be the bottleneck then. What is your BUS speed on the MB?

Windows 8.1 was inflicted upon me at work. The stupidest thing is having to drag the top of the window all the way down on my HD monitor to close it, instead of clicking X like it's been the case since Windows 3.11

Sure it might be great for the next something-pad, but it sucks lollipops for a PC with a mouse and keyboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

I think that's a more apt description for Windows8 itself. Microsoft has removed functionality in order to meet their arbitrary decision to (attempt) unify the desktop & tablet experience. There's no valid reason for removing the Start menu. :shrug:

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Which functionality of the Start menu that you loved so much was removed?
Shutdown is a click or two more now but it's not removed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gregoshi

My latest annoyance regarding Win8 comes from wondering why I couldn't play a DVD on my computer with Windows Media Player. After searching Microsoft's knowledgebase, they apparently decided that hardly any PCs these days have DVD/Blu-ray drives, hence it was easier to remove the functionality to annoy everyone than it was to leave it in there.

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That's a valid criticism, they removed the entire MPEG-2 codec IIRC, you can however get the K-lite codec pack for example to get the functionality back, which is not an excuse for the removal though. The quality of free codecs also varies a bit but new drives often come with a DVD player software that includes a codec.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gregoshi

I'm also THRILLED that they own Skype now. My user experience with that went from nary a problem to problems just about every time I try to use it. Buying Win7 is looking better and better every day. :wall:

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I haven't had any big issues in team conferences using the Skype app, you can however still install and use the normal desktop client that you need in Win 7 anyway. The new app has some potential but is still lacking in many areas. Sometimes I receive calls right away and sometimes I get the notification an hour after someone tried to call me. That definitely begs for improvements.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Myth

Windows 8.1 was inflicted upon me at work. The stupidest thing is having to drag the top of the window all the way down on my HD monitor to close it, instead of clicking X like it's been the case since Windows 3.11

Sure it might be great for the next something-pad, but it sucks lollipops for a PC with a mouse and keyboard.

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Yes, or you can open the bar on the left side of your screen by moving your mouse to the upper left corner and close all open apps except the one that is currently on screen. I think the system is designed just like it is on your phone, where you often let apps just run in the background and clean up once in a while. I also have the habit of wanting to close them right away though. Desktop applications still have the x however and I do not make all that much use of the new "metro/modern" apps anyway.

For the record, my gaming PC still runs Win 7 but working with Windows 8 on my notebook is absolutely no problem, in fact I think it has quite a few advantages, multi-monitor support is better, you can access the Start screen on both monitors, I can access applications much faster using the start screen than using the old start menu. I mostly work on the desktop anyway and the new apps I use mostly for the weather widget and the mail app, the rest is relatively secondary and there is nothing forcing the new type of apps on you. If you want you can run all desktop applications.

Windows is annoying by default, though bearable. A large part of that is the cluelessness of the 3rd party developers who seem intent on committing every cardinal sin, crime against humanity and inventing new ways to make your life miserable. There is no need for Microsoft to add to that, yet they do. Oh they do.

As for annoying: Windows 8 runs two graphical subsystems side by side. While you could run Windows 7 and previous in a VM and merely shake your head in disgust at the sheer awfulness of its performance; now you can't shake your head anymore for fear of making the VM hang if you look at it funny.

Interesting though it is, the discussion of Windows 8(.1)'s merits (or lack of) probably should have their own topic rather than junking up this thread about Lemur's PC build...

If people want to continue the discussion, I'd be happy to split the last few posts into a different topic. :yes:

I'm sticking with Windows 7 until the next one comes along. It's my experience that they are always a hit and miss version. 95 - huge improvement over 3.11, 98 - nothing new, apart from maybe FAT32. 2000/NT were server versions so I exclude them. XP - awesome. Vista - complete bollocks. 7 - awesome. 8 - the only new stuff I see is aweful compared to 7 (I just have the one monitor anyway). So I'm waiting for 9 or whatever they call it.

Also, an unrelated picture:

http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net...Nw3K1_700b.jpg

Lemur

How did you get on with your hybrid drive, I'm thinking of getting one till the SSDs get a bit cheaper, I run my OS from a SSD but was going to move to hybrid for my music and videos.

Thanks

The hybrid drive is actually meant for the kids' computer. My storage drive in the big boxen is actually a bog-standard WD drive.

Hybrid drives are nice if you don't want to plonk down for a sizeable SSD, but you want to give a laptop or a desktop a bit of oomph.

I never knew what was so different about linux. I had never fully understood the difference between an operating system and a user interface - believing that a UI was simply a component of an OS, but now I do and it makes all the difference in the world.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg

I never knew what was so different about linux. I had never fully understood the difference between an operating system and a user interface - believing that a UI was simply a component of an OS, but now I do and it makes all the difference in the world.

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Well, in fairness, the UI is a component of the OS. That ain't wrong.

Tried to find a handy graphic that would illustrate the architectural differences between Windows and Unix. Failed. I'll look again later.

Meanwhile, here's a rather opinionated (but not inaccurate) summary of 10 differences between Linux and Windows. Not really the comprehensive 40,000-foot view I was looking for ...

-edit-

Also note that Linux is just one variant on Unix. Here's a family tree that might help clarify where all of the bits and pieces come from, their heritage, their parentage, and so forth.

https://i.imgur.com/8UFKMrU.png

It's very opinionated.

I find searching the interwebs fro Linux commands incredibly tedious and don't feel like spending a year just to learn them all. And it's almost necessary to do so, especially if you use the adjustableness of the interface to make it disappear and then don't know how to get it back (did that once). As for stability, last time I installed a Linux Mint, it crashed during the login after the first restart. Installing some versions of Linux when you have no internet access is also almost impossible or rather boring as I found out because I have no discs with Linux programs here. The central application repository is indeed a good idea in general, but it also lists tons of programs that may not run on your version of Linux and I found quite a few that crashed on startup etc. And then Microsoft has that new Store since Windows 8.

It's not like I hate Linux, we are just not made for eachother and I think Windows is usually easier to maintain and use for the average user and people who do not want to delve deep into command line stuff and source code. And Apple is apparently even more so but also even more closed, but they all contribute to IT in general and they all have their target audience. I wouldn't really recommend Linux to my grandma just like I wouldn't recommend Windows to someone who wants to edit the source files of his system. I'm very much at peace with Windows, especially since I even stopped changing my wallpapers regularly because I really have better things to do with my computer than fiddle around with the OS all day. ~;) YMMV of course.

Well, the funny thing about Apple's OS X is that it's wildly popular with technophobes and deep nerds, and not a lot in-between.

Designers and filmmakers don't give a flying monkey about how closed the system is, they just like having their tools on a stable platform. And deep Unix nerds like having an easy version of Unix on laptops. Or as one Unix Admin friend of mine put it back in the day, "Hey man, you have no idea what it means to have a version of Unix on a laptop that just works."

I do 95% of my work in a Windows environment, so I should probably just shut the hell up.

-edit-

Here's a not-terrible whitepaper about the architectural differences between Windows and Unix. Still looking for some sort of handy graphic that can illustrate the big differences. Still failing.