Fred builds his first PC

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Fred
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Fred builds his first PC

Post by Fred »

I've modified them before here and there, but never actually bought a set of bits and built a whole one.

Build spec (no hysterical laughing) :
  • Intel atom 330 dual core main board
  • Corsair 2 gig 667 DDR2 stick
  • 200gig seagate 2.5" 7200rpm 16mb sata 300 disk
  • Morex Cubid 3688 Black case
  • P4 power adapter cable
  • Slim dvd burner from dead laptop
  • Existing 20" cheap viewsonic lcd
  • 2 gig corsair stick for the EEE too!! (not related, but ordered at the same time...)
I know the power supply is on the weak side, and it may die, if it does I'll order a replacement with more balls.

Some pics of the cute little case :

Image

Image

etc...

This should have twice the power my EEE has which should be more than enough.

So long as I can watch top gear vids on it, I don't care too much :-)

I won't get the parts till monday or tuesday or so even though I would like to have it up and running by Tuesday morning... I'll be needing it from now on for a while due to change of projects. Apparently I was so good at work a couple of managers were fighting over me. Poor communication FTL.

Fred.
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by Fred »

DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
FreeEMS.org - the open source engine management system
FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
The ever growing list of FreeEMS success stories!
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Fred
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by Fred »

  • Stealing the woman's car at 2am - potentially painful.
  • Driving the woman's car to 24hr Tesco with no license/insurance - potentially expensive.
  • Buying a Tesco branded PS2 keyboard for 4 quid and some pence - embarrassing.
  • Nearly smoking the clutch in the woman's car trying to do a second gear roll back - potentially expensive.
  • Getting to install Lenny at 2am for no reason in particular - PRICELESS
Geek! :-)
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
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FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
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Fred
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by Fred »

Maori wiring job :

Image

Image

It's up and running and configured for ssh access better than ever before.

Boot time with a bare naked Lenny = 10s MINT! :-)

nearly 4am, bed time!

Fred.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
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FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by Fred »

I've got a gui installed on it now. I'll finish the rest of the install stuff off later and start documenting it in the other thread.

Here is a screeny of top showing the 4 cpu cores. It is actually only dual core but linux treats hyper threading like more, so it shows 4. I'll have to do some experiments to see how fast it really is. Seems very nippy though.

Image

Here is a screeny of it playing a DVD and h264 640x480 vid at the same time. Note the state of top in the top right corner. (1 meg pic 1680 1050 so beware...)

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff26 ... om-330.png

Excuse the bad movie...

I've since changed video driver from GL to XV in gmplayer and its using even less again. Pretty sweet really.

I'll have to try 720p and 1080p if I can find something I want to download/watch.

More pics to come when I finally screw it together properly.

Fred.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
FreeEMS.org - the open source engine management system
FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by jharvey »

Hmmm, new box, does that mean new configs for FreeEMS? If so when you setup GCC, Eclipse, ect, can you wink it?

http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

Or perhaps a showmedo.com?
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by Jack Biscuit »

Heh, sounds like a good idea to me..

Just switched over to Linux, Ubuntu as it happens (you're using Debian Fred?), and bearing in mind i've only faffed aboout with other distro's (and ended up deleting them when windows went toes up), and the last time i used anything remotely Linux like was on a minicomputer at college 12 years ago, you might forgive me for being somewhat beyond rusty. :D

I know i can set up to work with this on windows, but that is ready for a reinstall and i want to make the break and go with the proper OS, and keep that for mainly FreeEMS stuff.

Just the learning curve is steeper than it seemed all those years ago, and my eye's are going funny with all this reading :)

I'll get there, probably ;)
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by Fred »

Code: Select all

fred@rwdlsd:~$ apt-cache search recordmydesktop
gtk-recordmydesktop - Graphical frontend for recordmydesktop
recordmydesktop - Captures audio-video data of a Linux desktop session
fred@rwdlsd:~$ apt-cache search vnc2swf
pyvnc2swf - screen recording tool with Flash (SWF) output
If I need to do anything like that in future I'll see what I can manage. In the mean time though, I'm working on publicising the tools that I install in the other thread. There is a lot left to do, but I'm getting there. I hope to be repeating the experience on the eee this coming weekend.

As for setup, with eclipse it's just a matter of installing the CDT tools and egit/jgit plugin. I really don't do anything too exciting, I assure you :-)

---------------------------------

JB2 (I wouldn't forget you Jean), Poobuntu is a good choice for a noob, it comes with most of the advantages of Debian (yes, that is what I use) but an easier time installing and configuring certain things. I really don't think Debian is all that bad at all, but some apparently do. The trouble with ubuntu is that when you decide you want something custom, you are screwed because everything is hacked together to work in a hard coded way. I like to tweak so it doesn't suit me.

I've been thinking of putting an open source software forum section in this open forums area. Perhaps I'll get around to it soon, in the mean time, feel free to ask questions here or in the lounge. Don't be shy.

With deb and screwbuntu all you really need to know about is :

Code: Select all

apt-get update
apt-cache search <keyword(s)>
apt-cache show <package name>
apt-get install <package name>
You also need to know to setup your sources.list with appropriate extra entries. (universe and multiverse for spewbuntu).

Fred.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
FreeEMS.org - the open source engine management system
FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
The ever growing list of FreeEMS success stories!
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Fred
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by Fred »

OK, video tests done, software 1080p hd h264 = no show...

720p x264 = close, but not quite. easily watchable, but mplayer knows its dropping some frames etc. during mild bits the rate is about 80% but it can hit 130% when the action is heavy. I think it would be fine for 720 unless you are really fussy. Still better graphics card with some hardware support would be better.

Bed!

Fred.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
FreeEMS.org - the open source engine management system
FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
The ever growing list of FreeEMS success stories!
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Re: Fred builds his first PC

Post by rsv »

Fred have you checked out mythtv? looks like you are building a media centre PC?(!)

I am just building a laptop with ubuntu specifically for FeeEMS!! :-) as the start to a VERY long and VERY steep learning curve. though I have done some with the 6502 years ago.

I installed Eclipse not I need to learn C (again) any good online resources out there for C and freescale processors???
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