Re: Techie advice please

David P wrote:
New pc beckons and its down to a Fujitsu Siemens or HP [both shown on the Comet wesite and retailing at c250 and c£300 respectively].

Gut reaction is that HP is probably a better product and their website seems to offer far more support but I'd listen to any views please. 

My personal views are as follows:-

Fujitsu.

One of the worst computer manufacturers on the market. The Met bought several thousand of them in the 1990's. Never again. They had every fault you could imagine. My particular PC had over 25 faults in one year. This included a dead power supply killed by a power spike when I disconnected and then re-connected a lead to the parallel port. I really do not know how a power supply could be so sensitive but I was told by the mechanic that it was a common fault in that PC. The contract had been awarded before I started the job which involved me in representing policing in such contracts. Even I could not get satisfaction from Fujitsu. What chance would an independent buyer stand? I always pronounce their name Few*****soo.

HP.

Very good quality equipment but lousy after sales service. They also have a habit of tying you to their parts forever more. For instance, by having the motherboard look for certain coding on the hard disk before it will talk to said hard disk. Any new hard disks have to be bought from HP, at HP's prices. There is a way round this by buying a daughter board but it is unnecessary hassle and I use this to illustrate HP's mentality.

Why go for these two manufacturers? There are plenty better. Everyone has their favourites. At the moment, mine is Komplett. They started off by selling only component parts (very cheap, good quality, and excellent service) and some people (myself included) built their own computers using those parts. They found this so popular that they started selling kits (they supplied matching components and you built your own) and then offered a service where they built the PC for you. This means that there are no sub-standard parts (which is where many companies make their profits) such as Fijitsu power supplies. You also get the benefit of certain parts being much higher quality that those with normal PCs, such as a decent case (you don't think anyone would be able to sell those pieces of bent tin if sold on their own, do you?).

Have a look at http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/cl.asp?bn=10310 and

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/cl.asp?bn=10626

I know they are more expensive than the ones you were looking at but at least they will work. There is a reason the ones you were looking at are so cheap. If you really want to save money (this must appeal to someone from your region <g>) then buy the parts and build one yourself. It is very easy as the bits just plug into one another. You may find that some parts off your current machine will be re-usable and save yourself even more money.

Others will be along in a moment to suggest their favourite machines. I think it will be very unlikely that they will include the two makes you were looking at.


Next question - I've been told that with XP Home there is a utility [similar, I suspect, to partition magic] which allows disk to be partitioned *after* os has been installed. Is this correct as I'd like to create 2 additional 'drives' under windows -new pc's come with OS fully loaded. I'd looked at local specialists to build to spec and had checked out a couple of 'diy' places to order the bits from but couldn't get to chain store price n specs.

Next task is to install and dual boot to a *nix OS [windows is still necessary for me but will be reduced in use over time] - this will be installed onto the fourth partition in effect.

Seems that many of the new distros are Debian based and I'd appreciate any views on the ease of use of them for a total *nix newbie.

That utility is nowhere as manipulable as Partition Magic. I did look at it but quickly went back to PM so I did not put it fully to the test. ISTR that there were tasks it would not do, such as moving and re-sizing partitions once made.

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Howard Neil
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