I'm making a Linux Computer for my Father-In-Law

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

My father in law has a laptop, but when his grandson / my nephew needs the laptop for school or something, my FIL does not have a computer handy. (My eldest nephew has my old gaming computer in his bedroom, but I can understand not wanting to go up there to compute.

I was able to download this in 12 seconds due to the third party torrent site I pay: https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/ubunt ... so.torrent -- I'll FTP that down to my computer tonight and then get it on a USB stick so I am ready to install.

Case is coming tomorrow. I was able to get most of these parts from a friend who has a ton of extra computer equipment out here and needed the space:

MSI Z170A PC Mate motherboard
Unknown Intel processor at the time.
Unknown amount of RAM, but it will have at least 16GB when I am done with it.
An MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming X 4GB video card. Should be perfect for just running a desktop and not playing games.
RX-730SS power supply. I pulled it off my main computer because the 3070 video card I bought needed more/different connectors.
The case is a Fractal Design Define C - Compact Mid Tower Computer Case. I really like Fractal.

Not sure on the peripherals just yet. I had a 1 TB hard drive floating around so I will just use that, although running the whole thing off a USB stick has its appeal too.

[AArdvark]

He's just surfing the net with it?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

He's just surfing the net with it?

Yah! Internet, web-based email and I'll put OpenOffice on it or whatever the hot Word/Excel rip off is.

I found out today I have no extra SATA cables, so I ordered some. I thought those used to come with cases but I guess not. I guess they come with ... hard drives and motherboards?

[RealNC]

I found out today I have no extra SATA cables, so I ordered some.

Really? You still use cables? Just get one of these instead:

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/me ... -v7e500bw/

[Jizaboz]

I found out today I have no extra SATA cables, so I ordered some.

Really? You still use cables? Just get one of these instead:

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/me ... -v7e500bw/

Ok kid from Back to the Future II that gives people shit about using a somehow-still-working lightgun to play Wild Gunman.

Don't you already have you already have an internal SSD icj? Me and Flack have em.. and I have a big magnetic drive (Flack has at least 50 of these) but have been thinking of buying a SSD that uses SATA as another drive. The prices are still a bit high on that type..

[RealNC]

Ok kid from Back to the Future II that gives people shit about using a somehow-still-working lightgun to play Wild Gunman.

Don't you already have you already have an internal SSD icj? Me and Flack have em.. and I have a big magnetic drive (Flack has at least 50 of these) but have been thinking of buying a SSD that uses SATA as another drive. The prices are still a bit high on that type..

Well, I was thinking that since icj said the computer is gonna be used for web browsing and such, a big drive is probably not needed. So if the motherboard has M.2 ports, a 500GB (about $60-$70) or 1TB ($100-$130) NVME would be the best option. A normal, spinning HDD would just result in more noise.

Also, it seems that M.2 SSDs cost about the same as the 2.5" ones, so if your board has M.2 slots, there's no reason to get 2.5" SSDs. You get rid of two cables that way, as M.2 SSDs plug directly into the mainboard (like RAM does.)

And (again, if the mainboard supports it), NVME M.2 SSDs are very close in price to SATA M.2s. So go for an NVME. The Samsung I linked above for example reads and writes at well over 3GB/s. (That's gigabytes, not gigabits.) A SATA SSD on the other hand, regardless of whether it's a traditional 2.5" one or an M.2, is limited to about 550MB/s.

[Jizaboz]

Ok kid from Back to the Future II that gives people shit about using a somehow-still-working lightgun to play Wild Gunman.

Don't you already have you already have an internal SSD icj? Me and Flack have em.. and I have a big magnetic drive (Flack has at least 50 of these) but have been thinking of buying a SSD that uses SATA as another drive. The prices are still a bit high on that type..

Well, I was thinking that since icj said the computer is gonna be used for web browsing and such, a big drive is probably not needed. So if the motherboard has M.2 ports, a 500GB (about $60-$70) or 1TB ($100-$130) NVME would be the best option. A normal, spinning HDD would just result in more noise.

Also, it seems that M.2 SSDs cost about the same as the 2.5" ones, so if your board has M.2 slots, there's no reason to get 2.5" SSDs. You get rid of two cables that way, as M.2 SSDs plug directly into the mainboard (like RAM does.)

And (again, if the mainboard supports it), NVME M.2 SSDs are very close in price to SATA M.2s. So go for an NVME. The Samsung I linked above for example reads and writes at well over 3GB/s. (That's gigabytes, not gigabits.) A SATA SSD on the other hand, regardless of whether it's a traditional 2.5" one or an M.2, is limited to about 550MB/s.

Oh I totally agree. I questioned the 16GB of RAM thing too like "Wow man does this guy want to play Crysis?"

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I had a spare SATA hard drive. The cable for it - $6 for 3 of them - is much, much cheaper than a NAND.

I have a NAND for my computer and it's the greatest thing ever. I wish they'd make 3 TB NANDs for reasonable prices.

As it turns out, the motherboard I got for it has two RAM sticks at 4GB each, so it's only going to be an 8GB of RAM computer. :(

[Flack]

Ah man, I know time is of the essence, but I have a plastic shoebox filled with SATA cables. Several years ago before I really knew what a NAS was, I made my own using an old PC tower, a bunch of hard drives, and a bunch of SATA cables. I have a bunch that are normal length and a bunch that are super long. They are all the same color as red licorice.

[pinback]

They are all the same color as red licorice.

Red?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I didn't take a picture of the computer. I don't know if I am going to be a Fractal guy for the rest of my life when it comes to cases. I needed to look some stuff up on the Internet in terms of how to connect it. It's sort of like how it's very obvious that extremely clever people work at Dyson the vacuum cleaner company, to the point where if you are like us and buy new in box but probably stolen Dyson vacuums you're like "Yes, yes, you're all very clever. It should not take me this long to figure out how to get the extension piece out to clean this corner."

I had forgotten about printers. Printers! People of his generation use printers. So I have it all ready to go and he states that he has a printer. Ubuntu said it identified the printer, but of course it did not. I had to open up a terminal and run a command as root to install the thing. I'll give "Brother" printers credit - when I ran an internet search and found that some rando Linux fan had put in the instructions, they certainly worked. Way to go. Way to go, Brother -- Hulk Hogan

But this is why Linux will never take over the world, and no, I don't expect them to because you couldn't pay any of us enough to make Printers Just Work on Linux.

[RealNC]

But this is why Linux will never take over the world

Which is a good thing. You know what happens when something gets extremely popular and everyone is into it: it turns into dog shit.

[Casual Observer]

I have an expensive color laser printer that for the last 10 years has only been used like a $15 flatbed scanner. I think paper should be outlawed, think of the trees that would save.

[AArdvark]

Huh, I was doing the indentured tech support for my mom and asked about her printer use. Apparently she prints out a Sudoku puzzle every day and fills it out with a pen because clicking and using a keypad are not the same thing.

[Jizaboz]

Huh, I was doing the indentured tech support for my mom and asked about her printer use. Apparently she prints out a Sudoku puzzle every day and fills it out with a pen because clicking and using a keypad are not the same thing.

I can totally see that. I strongly prefer using paper and pencil for Roleplaying character sheets printed out. We once had a DM that did it all in live spreadsheets and it felt so wrong.

However, I fucking hate printers. At previous jobs every time I heard "Jiz, printer is down again." I was totally annoyed. Almost as annoying as trying to figure out why a user is not getting email.. eh nah I'd say worse and glad I have not had to work on a printer for like 10 years.