"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." (Robert A. Heinlein)

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

New toy on the desk: Acer Veriton S661


Apart from the subtle pride of installing latest Linux releases on a six years old computer I have been feeling the need of a new desktop computer since some years. So, at last, I decided to buy a new one. Not so very new to be honest: I got it at a surplus fair, here in Genoa, where I go twice a year, and they told me it has been used only for “exposition purpose”. It must be true because its interior is almost free of any dust and we all know how is difficult to keep dust out of our computers.
The Acer Veriton S661 is a office targeted compact desktop: with a dual core 2600MHz processor, 1GB RAM and a 250GB hard disk. It could be better, especially on the RAM side, but there is time for expansions in the years to come. The compact case saves some space on my crumpled desktop (the Sempron 2400 was a mid-tower) and I needed this more than the improved performances. The case is well organized inside, in spite of its compactness and can even be opened without a screw-driver. Last but not least, it's wonderfully noiseless.

On the software side I installed Ubuntu 12.04 aside the existing Windows XP installation. Ubuntu Installation has been flawless: after partitioning disk and choosing initial install options the installation proceeded without interruption and all the hardware have been recognized properly (while on the Windows side I had to look for drivers all around the house and reboot three times). I even got the time to make some short video editing with OpenShot.
In the next days I'll begin experimenting with the many applications that interested me but the poor Sempron 2400's performances always kept me from installing. The first in the list will be KDE.

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