[GTALUG] new computer (+ thanks to Scott S.)

[Stewart C. Russell]

I'd like to send a note of appreciation to Scott Sullivan for taking a
couple of hours to spec out a new computer for me, and thinking of
issues I wouldn't have even known were things to avoid. Without Scott's
help, I'd likely have made some costly mistakes.

I needed a fairly CPU-strong desktop on a budget. Though I mostly work
in desktop graphics applications, my 3D graphics needs are pretty
limited. I need gobs of RAM, mostly because I attempt stuff in OpenSCAD
that wiser folks would give up on.

Scott noted that with DDR4 being mainstream, there are still some
DDR3-based systems available that provide a fair bit of processing power
for a good price. Here's what I bought and built:

* CPU: Intel i7-4790K at 4 GHz

* Motherboard: Asus H97M-E/CSM

* SSD: Intel 600p M.2 NVMe PCIe 500 GB

* RAM: Adata DDR3, 32 GB (“carefully burn-in tested”, aka secondhand)

* PSU: Corsair CX450 (again, “carefully burn-in tested” …)

* Monitor: Asus VP247H (on special last weekend at Canada Computers)

* Case: Cooler Master micro ATX

* Other bits: LG DVD drive, Apple USB keyboard (my own, previously),
wired USB "Blade Runner" mouse (surprisingly ergonomic, cheap, and
unlike most gamer mice, doesn't look as if I'm trying to push Deadmau5's
Nyan Cat Ferrari about the desk).

* Distro: Ubuntu Gnome (sorry, Scott …)

Observations:

* There are fewer retailers selling a smaller range of cases than you
might expect in the GTA. NCIX still has its warehouse outlet at
Birchmount and 14th in Markham, but moved to the south side of 14th.
It's not well advertised, and the building itself looks mostly empty.
You'll also need to know exactly what you want, as you order by SKU and
their showroom is mostly re-stock special offers. Which is fine if you
do actually want a slightly scratched banana-yellow gamer case the size
of a beer fridge.

* I hadn't built a desktop since 2005. My eyesight hasn't got any better
and trying to locate black pin headers inside a flat-black case is
somewhat challenging.

* The M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD is outrageously fast. Note that there are many
(incompatible) M.2 form factors and there are even sneaky SATA ones that
offer no real speed increase. The motherboard shipped with a very old
BIOS that didn't have M.2 support, which was fun.

* You'll note a complete lack of graphics card. Yup, Intel integrated
graphics is fine for me, for now.

* The Asus motherboard still has AT-style keyboard and mouse ports!
These were ‘legacy’ the last time I built a PC. For even more retroness,
it has a 16550-based serial port. Bet it doesn't have a FDC, tho.

* I think there's some tweaking required to the SATA DVD transport, as I
can rip a CD slightly faster on a Raspberry Pi 3 with external USB DVD
drive than I can on this new machine. This should not be so! While MP3
encoding is almost instantaneous on the i7, the CD rip process is
pedestrian.

* I finally tracked down how to make Gnome Tracker desktop search useful
again. As I said in my talk in April, I can't operate without desktop
search any more. It seems that a couple of Toronto Hydro smart meter
data spreadsheets would cause Tracker's indexer to blow up. Re-saving
them, excluding them or deleting them did the trick. Details on
diagnosing/fixing here:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/914581/no-progress-updates-from-gnome-tracker/914602#914602

* Gnome has gone perhaps a bit too minimalist. It has a top bar, but you
can't really add anything to it. I need my Character Map!

* Gnome location services are a bit crap. The computer insists I'm
operating from Christie Pits Park.

* The Apple keyboard will need a bit of configuration because of course
it has no Print Screen Key. Gnome's keyboard thingy assumes a PC layout,
even if you select a Macintosh keyboard.

Again, thanks to Scott for the help. Any other software/hardware
decisions are my own fault.

cheers,
 Stewart