That’s right all you free software loving losers and nerds. Send your hate mail to the address on the right. Also, if you don’t like reading about tech you should probably skip this post coz I’m about to get my geek on here.

So recently two things happened. Ubuntu launched, to much fanfare, the latest version of their operating system 10.04 LTS (Horny Heron or whatever lame-ass name the freetards gave it though in all fairness, Apple’s Snow Leopard moniker is hardly better) and I sold the Mac Mini, for three reasons;

1> I gave up the idea of ever buying a television and using the Mac Mini as an HTPC, there is just not enough content available to warrant my ever spending money on an LCD television. TV is dead to me. (The irony? I work in the television and film industry)

2> I needed/wanted a tower again, I want to buy cheaper, faster, higher capacity desktop drives and components to use in a system, no more pricey laptop components on a desktop system just because it is the size of a frakkin’ lunch box thankyouverymuch. The Mac Mini just wasn’t cutting it anymore as a file server and a back-up computer to the MacBook Pro and the other systems in the house.

And finally 3>Due to a recent unemployment (HIRE ME!) I had some free time on my hands and wanted to build a desktop computer again, something I had not done in almost half a decade and used to enjoy very much.

So, I sold the Mac Mini to an Iphone app developer on Craig’s List (I also dealt with a scammer who wanted to send the payment to me from the United Kingdom and have me ship the computer to and-I-kid-you-not, NIGERIA. I responded with a cordial, business-like BLOW ME!)

I then gathered the bits of computer hardware scattered around the house like pieces of flotsam and jetsam, mostly hardware abandoned by my brother when he got his first Mac last year (A white Macbook) and this is what I came up with

1> One AMD processor of unknown spec with a heat-sink and a fan missing two blades. WTF?

2> One mATX Gigabyte motherboard with integrated Nvidia graphics, a PCI-E slot and 10/100 Mbit networking. (No Gigabit Ethernet? Really?)

3>One passively cooled Nvidia 7200GS PCI-E Graphics card of unknown make. A Google search for a review of this card’s capabilities led me to a page with this heading.

Thats right. Better than NOTHING!

4> One beat-up computer case with a TWENTY pin power supply that my brother had been using with the TWENTY FOUR pin power supply motherboard. (I’ve always maintained that the kid was short a few connectors)

5>One CD-Writer that may or (more likely) may not be working. (I have 2000 A.D. on the phone here. They want their optical drive back please)

6> One original 2.5” 200GB Apple branded Hitachi hard drive from my MacBook Pro.

So, with all these super high-end components I had readily available I decided that I could get away with just buying a decent quality case and power supply and proceeded with the build. I soon realised that due to my brother’s use of it with the wrong power connectors the motherboard was dead and gave it in for repair.

One week later, when the motherboard was working I bought a discreet looking i-Ball Baby 306 mini-tower case and once again, I proceeded with the build. The case turned out to be very good value for money, it had two decent quality case fans and a half-decent power supply installed in it and the build quality seemed to be quite a bit better than the usual shit you find in the cheap cases they try to sell you where I buy hardware. The only unpleasant surprise I got was when I had everything fitted in nicely, the wiring tied down neatly and I booted the system up for the first time with a view of the front of the case.

What had looked like a thin strip of perspex running down the front of the case in images on the interwebz and at the store where I bought it turned out to be a one foot long strip of brilliant BLUE LEDs that computer-part makers love so much these days.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

After frantically checking I found out that it’s wiring was tied in with the case fans’. I decided not to fuck with it and leave well enough alone. My computer desk resembles the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise in the dark anyways with all the LEDs winking, pulsing and flashing in pretty much every colour of the visible light spectrum so one more light wasn’t going to hurt that much I reasoned. On with the build! I soon found out that the much vaunted CD-writer was in fact dead as a dodo so I removed the dusty paper-weight from the case and chucked it.

Now for the Ubuntu installation! The ‘fun’ as I can now see in retrospect and you will find out if you read the next post, had only just begun.

Stay tuned kids….

Similar Posts:

• Why Ubuntu STILL sucks (Part 2): A tale of relentless #FAIL.
• Indie developers and the future of the Mac platform.
• The ow! is now.

Rants, Tech