New desktop, what OS to use?
My desktop computer at home took a shit on me on Monday night when we got back from NYC. I tried to fire it up and got a blue screen with “STOP 0×000000000001″ (or some other hex number) in white letters. Since I got the machine about 5 years ago from General Nanosystems, I figured it was an appropriate time to get a new one.
The WAF on a new computer was initially very low, but after the initial shock Erin is usually very accommodating of my geek purchases. I’m not much for buying a bleeding edge computer, rather I like to get the best bang for the buck while also making sure the machine will last several years.
I’m thinking a Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of ram (which will become 3 when I salvage one of the gigs from the current machine), dual 160 gig hard drives, and a modest video card that supports dual monitors. My two 15″ lcd displays are good enough for me, so I don’t need any monitor. I’m not a gamer at all so I don’t need a badass video card or sound card.
The biggest decision is actually what OS I’ll be using. I had Vista on the current desktop before it bit the bullet, but I had some problems, specifically with my FreeAgent drive and other usb devices. Not being able to use my usb devices is reason enough for me to go back to XP, but I might be willing to give Vista another chance with some newer hardware, I don’t know.
I won’t be getting said machine for a couple weeks, so I have some time to hem and haw about it.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, I fixed the existing computer by removing a bad ram chip, so now I can’t justify buying a new one 
I also fixed the usb device issues by removing a 4 port usb PCI card that I had installed. So now the computer is actuall pretty usable.
