new computer

[Stephen Partington]

On my current system I am running without swap, but I do have 32gb ram.

If you pick an ssd with a ram cache on it you don't have to worry about
swap as much there. And you can extend ssd life with underprovisioning if
it still is a concern. But in reality a good quality ssd Wil last for years
even with swap in place as long as you don't run near max storage.

On Sun, Feb 25, 2024, 6:49 AM James Mcphee via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

> To avoid swap wearing out your ssd, if you don't have an hd handy, you can
> set vm.swappiness to 0.  This is not great since paging is quite efficient
> these days, but sometimes you'll want swap for suspend operations and don't
> want to actually page unless you're under memory pressure.
>
> On Sat, Feb 24, 2024 at 3:09 PM David Schwartz via PLUG-discuss <
> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>
>> Check out the latest batch of Intel-based N100 Mini PCs. They’re smaller
>> than MacMinis.
>>
>> I’d say a minimal configuration would be 32GB of RAM and 1TB (or 2TB) of
>> SSD. I’d say an N100 is minimal CPU.
>>
>> Some with AMD CPUs are cheaper as well.
>>
>> Here’s a search on Amazon:
>>
>> https://amzn.to/3woboP0
>>
>> They don’t sort very well; here’s the cheapest Linux box I found. There
>> are cheaper ones with Windows that you can delete.
>>
>> https://amzn.to/48wM5rv
>>
>> I’ve got a 2014 MacMini, a 2014 MBP, and a 2018 MacMini and they’re still
>> going strong. You can find late-model used Intel MacMinis for a few hundred
>> bucks that work great.
>>
>> Way back in the day, the all-in-one boxes used to have problems with a
>> serial port or the video going out and the whole thing would be dead. But
>> that doesn’t seem to happen much any more. I use my MacMinis daily and the
>> newer one runs the fan a lot when I’m watching videos, but other than that,
>> they’re still humming right along. I had one of the first gen iMacs and the
>> video card in it died shortly after the AppleCare expired. I ended up
>> selling it for $375 anyway. Today you can buy USB-3 and USB-C expansion
>> ports with one or more HDMI interfaces on them if the on-board video dies.
>>
>> Unless you need a super-high-power over-clocked water-cooled screaming
>> machine for gaming or bitcoin mining, I cannot see the value in building a
>> machine from scratch unless you’re trying to do it on the cheap using
>> recycled components. What’s the point?
>>
>> -David Schwartz
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 23, 2024, at 6:46 PM, Michael via PLUG-discuss <
>> plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>
>> I want a guy I know to put a computer together for me. I'm thinking a
>> single core (I don't think I need more processing power than that) with 8
>> gig of ram. I'm wanting to spend $3-$400. I'm an older guy now and won't
>> use it for much more than web and email. What should I tell him to put in
>> it?
>>
>> --
>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
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>>
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>
>
> --
> James McPhee
> jmcphe at gmail.com
> ---------------------------------------------------
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