The Swordsman who fights with a Paper Sword – Me and My PC

Introduction

I think it will be safe for me to get slightly personal in this little post of mine. Here I am going to describe how my life, as a geek and power user, goes on everyday with this computer of mine, which means anything but power. All this because I was never really a geek once, I was just a semi-backward guy who turned geek out of his own actions.

My Computer’s Configuration

My computer has a configuration most people would call really weak and old. It was bought in the second half of 2005, and even for a computer bought back then, my system is extremely weak. Holding everything tightly is a cheap motherboard which was 5k when I bought it, Intel D915GLVG. This board has onboard Intel GMA900 graphics, onboard RealTek “HD” ALC880 Audio, and almost NO expansion slots. The graphics sucks to the extreme, and it has issues running even basic things like the Compiz Fusion Composite Desktop manager. The onboard audio is also bad, and though its output is average, its input sucks. There is hardly any bass frequency absorbed by the input of this horrible audio chip. Advertised as a board with a PCIe Slot, this board has a PCIe slot indeed, but a PCIe 1x slot and god knows what GPU I may use in it. It also has 256mb of DDR1 RAM clocked at an effective clockspeed of 400MHz. This amount of RAM is hardly sufficient to run any good modern day OS at full speed. Compared to the rest of the system, at its core lies a rather better off CPU, an Intel Pentium “Prescott” 4 clocked at 2.66GHz and 1MB L2 Cache. This CPU was one of the better buys at the time of my system’s purchase, and hence I have least regret buying this. The Hard Disc is a slow Samsung 80GB SATA model, which is now proving to be too little for me. Then there is an Acer AC713 17″ CRT monitor, which was supposed to be Flat Screen, but it turned out that it was not. I have a cheap but decent Tech Com 2.1 Speaker System, a UPS from another no name company named Digital, an iBall designer cabinet thats anything but designer looking, and one of the world’s worst printers, the Epson Stylus C45.

How I bought this System

During the time of my purchase of my system, also my first computer, I was anything but a geek. I was a kid who had no idea of what was good and what was bad, and I only wanted to play games on this system. I should have bought an AMD Athlon XP/64 system instead, which would have saved me atleast 6K and would have given me a much better performance, but my total ignorance of technology, and the lies told by many to me about AMD processors ensured that I ended up with an ugly and worthless Intel System instead. I couldn’t understand what feature I should look for, and I also couldn’t follow the names of various parts of my computer’s motherboard. In simple words, I was what you can safely call a “Total n00b“.

I Turn A Geek

Like many over curious guys, I started experimenting (but within levels of safety) with my computer. I used to buy a technology magazine called Digit every month. Then I obtained an internet connection. Then curiosity turned to obsession, which turned to controlled obsession, then to interest, then I started considering it as a career. Lots of changes came by me (not just testosterone level increase related ones… lol) and I started finding this PC damn too weak for my use.

The Swordsman who fights with a Paper Sword

So there it is, the main title of what I am writing. I started feeling like a swordsman who is fighting with a paper sword. Normally guys just complain and try to get a better system. I did that in the beginning, but all I managed was an upgrade of my DVD-Combo drive to a DVD-RAM drive. Then I realized more upgrades are not as realistic as they sound. With a system too weak to satisfy me, I started to explore more, and tried to juice out more and more performance from my system without resorting to any upgrades.

First thing I learnt was that there is a way to make components stronger by “some geeky technique”(OC is anything but geeky) called overclocking. Well, then I heard Intel Motherboards can NEVER be overclocked properly, and I also noticed that my ambient temperature shown in the BIOS is rather abnormally high, and till date its higher than most overclocked rigs, so this meant NO overclocking for me. Now, since hardware was locked, I decided to move towards the software.

I noticed that my windows xp was an ugly bloated sin. Its windows media player sucked. Most software I had installed, like real player, quicktime, itunes, power dvd, musicmatch jukebox, etc. I got rid of them all. I started organizing my content better, and installing software in a separate partition. I also gained exposure to opensource software like OpenOffice.org and “community” freeware (freeware thats almost as good as opensource for all practical purposes) like Foobar2000. I gradually replaced many softwares with better ones, and soon I was at my hight of windows g33kery and Power Usage. But then, things again started changing. For the good.

I used to still occasionally buy Digit Magazine, and I once found a supplement for it, titled Fast Track to Linux. I quickly became interested. The idea of an alternative OS made me curious. I started reading it, and although it didn’t speak brightly about linux, it gave me a foundation. But I still didn’t touch linux for another half an year. When I did, I ended up creating the turning point of my life as a g33k.

Ubuntu. This funny name was the name of a Linux Distribution that was recommended to me by many. I had downloaded a few “Live” distros, and I tested them. Ubuntu appeared radically different from windows, and I decided to find out from experienced users what I must use. I went to http://linuxforums.org/forum/ and asked a question in the Newbie section. I was told that my computer was the perfect candidate for a Linux Upgrade(smiles), and I was advised to try out Ubuntu Linux. I installed version 7.04, to which I held on till recently. Initially, I had issues. I couldn’t connect to the internet for the first 2 months, since I had no prior experience to configuring a broadband connection. A solution for this I searched everywhere, and in the meanwhile ubuntu being just a sitting duck on my system which couldn’t do anything due to lack of required software. A friend of mine, whom I was the one who prescribed linux to, ended up finding the solution. I was happy, and a new phase began in my computer tweaking.

Internet access means a lot of things. A huge world is open to you, and you get to see and hear a lot about many things. Advice and ideas for nearly every situation in the world exists there. Computing with ubuntu was no different. I was surprised, because I heard that linux lacks much support. Instead, ubuntu had too much support, everywhere I went. I started noticing linux in more and more places, and I started customizing ubuntu. I made it look like a killer with the help of themes. I streamlined applications removing bloats like RhythemBox and adding other software like VLC, Xine, MPlayer, Audacious, etc. I also started using power software, especially those for purposes other than normal. With ubuntu studio, I was able to use my PC as an amplifier for my guitar. I found OpenOffice extremely useful for publishing articles and presentations. I started messing with software sources and I learnt to compile my own software. I even started GAMING on ubuntu, and to this day I can’t live without Urban Terror, my favorite all time game which also works on ubuntu and is a freeware. Life was fun on ubuntu, but I still had to often switch to windows for gaming, especially since I was addicted to gaming at that time and I wanted to run GTA Vice City, Unreal Tournament, Halo, etc on my PC.

But not for long. Studies forced me to leave games, and I felt better that way. I started spending more and more time on linux instead, because it was both fun and the experience could help me make a living in future. Then windows started having issues. Like all Windows systems, mine too goofed up, for the first time ever, and I was able to use it only in safe mode. So I started being on linux 99% of the time I was on my computer. Then ubuntu became to me what windows was once before. I started finding it a bit old. But since a new version was available for me, I decided to get myself an upgrade to whats the current release as of now, Ubuntu 8.04.

Now chaos started. Ubuntu 8.04 had EVERYTHING, and I mean everything. It was just too good. It had every single software in its repositories, it looked great. But all this came at a cost. My system once again started to bottleneck me. Ubuntu as it is was not stable enough anymore, and it lagged and hanged more than windows ever did on my system, all this because ubuntu was also going the good looks high eye candy over ease of use way, and hence started drawing up more and more system resources.

Happy Days Again

It was finally time for me to migrate. I needed to step into unexplored waters, and I decided to get a new distro. I went to the exact same forum as before for help, almost exactly an year later. I was suggested Debian “Sid” Unstable, but due to stability issues, I selected Debian “Lenny” Testing. I ditched lenny quite soon due to the lack of scope in Lenny, and ended up taking Sid, but in a different flavor, Sidux. This ensured stability for Sid by withholding unstable packages.

Now I again had the time of my life customizing. Sidux was extreme, and it was super fast on my system. I used it after tonnes of customization, and I still use it and I feel great. It has everything I might possibly need, and nothing more. Its repository may not be as huge as Ubuntu, but it was enough.

History Repeats

But… once again the system is starting to let me down. Its not able to run at full speed two main web browsers, Firefox3 and Opera 9.5. I am again feeling the familiar old ache, and I think its time to do something. Now, I realized that there was no way I can do anything about it since I am already at my near peak level of performance optimization. I also have little free time now. And hence, I feel that this race is finally over. There is little I can do now to ensure fast performance of my computer without missing some features. Compiling software and running distros like Gentoo, Crux or Arch would have been solutions, but compiling requires lots of dev packages. And with a tiny HDD, that is impossible for me.

The paper needs more wood

Finally, I have decided to stay with sidux. This is only as light as it can get. So now, I am left with no option but an upgrade, an upgrade which I wanted all the time. But the trouble is, I can’t upgrade without any issues. I am going to be mostly leaving home (and my computer) in another year, and an upgrade will be useless because the rest of my family is happy with the system as it is. So only the most minimal upgrades can be done. I am settling for another 512mb of RAM to my system, which I can hopefully get without any issues, and which will work well with my current RAM. This way, I can have 768mb of RAM, which is 1.5 times the current minimum standard, and can hence stay on and pull the system for atleast an year, by which time I will be shifting and getting myself a laptop.

To Conclude

All I can say now is that I will ensure that I don’t make a mistake like the one I did buying this system three years back. Since I have enough knowledge about laptops, desktops, different internal components and linux now, and since now I am a full fledged geek, there is very little chance of me rushing or making a mistake with my laptop upgrade. I hope for goodwill’s sake that no newbie again makes a mistake what I once did, and gets proper advice before buying a new system. If anyone ever gets himself/herself a system like the one I did, then I would advice him/her to ensure that if an exchange is not possible, he/she atleast tries the best to keep it alive. Even if turning geek was necessary to do this.