On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 09:27:09PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
Don't retail Processors come with coolers? Generally, they are OK (not outstanding) -- good enough.
Certainly intel CPUs do, except if it is a K model or a socket 2011 chip. Apaprently intel figures if you buy an unlocked chip (K model) or a higher end socket 2011 chip, you probably don't want their cpu cooler anyhow. I suspect they are right.
2 x 4G RAM is a waste of memory sockets. Go for higher density.
Certainly 8GB sticks make more sense these days.
debian (quirk: no capital letter on the front) is a good OS. It might not be the best intro to Linux. People seem to recommend Mint. I've never used it.
Mint is quite well put together. There are two versions. One is Ubuntu based and has a release pretty much whenever Ubuntu has one (with a bit of a delay) and expects you to reinstall to upgrade. The other is the Debian based one, which uses continous in place updates done by using Debian testing, and doing an update whenever Mint is done making sure things are stable.
If you don't have a broadband internet connection, all sorts of things that I don't notice might become problems. Like updates.
That would be quite a pain. -- Len Sorensen