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Assemble your PC #1 : The basics
Assemble your PC #2 : Choosing the parts

What operating system am I going to use?

Before you buy components, be sure that they are supported by the operating
system you plan to use. Almost all current, commonly available PC devices have
drivers available for current versions of Windows (generally, anything 2000, XP,
Vista, or newer); if you want to run an alternative operating system, you’ll have
to do some research; many alternatives have extensive ’Hardware Compatibility
Lists’ as well as software comaptibility.

Windows hardware support lists
Windows XP supports most processors and motherboards based on the i386
(x86; 32-bit) or x86 64 (AMD64/EM64T; 64-bit) architectures. Put simply, all
available consumer processors (especially from AMD or Intel) will work with
the Windows XP operating system.

Linux hardware support lists
As one of the most popular free operating systems, Linux is a very good alternative.
It has versions for many different architectures, including i386, x64 and
PowerPC, though i386 versions are much more common. It will also support all
kinds of processors, enabling it to be used on Palm PCs and even iPods. There
are many different versions of Linux, produced by different companies. These
are called ’distributions’ or ’distros’ for short. For a desktop PC, you should
make sure to pick a desktop distro, one where the company/organisation has
desktop users in mind, e.g. Ubuntu, SimplyMEPIS or Mandriva. SUSE is also a
good choice, and has tools that make it easy to use as a server. Ubuntu has won
many awards from PC magazines and is noted for being particularly easy to use
(for basic tasks, e.g. web, email, word processing). It should be noted, however,
that many popular programs, especially games, are not available for Linux, and
the only way to run them is with special compatibility layers or programs like
Wine, which may or may not work with a specific program.
All this is important to bear in mind as different distros will support different
hardware (generally more ’bleeding-edge’ distros will support newer hardware
look at Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, but not the stable release of Debian). A good
rule of thumb is to buy hardware that is 12 to 18 months old, as it most likely
has Linux support with most distros, but won’t be too old.

Previous topics
Assemble your PC #1 : The basics
Assemble your PC #2 : Choosing the parts

Previous post : Assemble your PC #1 : The basics

• Video Card/Graphics Card/GPU does processing relating to video
output. Some motherboards have an “onboard” GPU built in so you dont
need (but may add) a separate video card. Otherwise, you will need a
video card. These plug into a slot on the motherboard and provide a
place to connect a monitor to your computer.
On top of the internal components listed above, you will also need these
external components:
• Keyboard for typing on. Many motherboards won’t even boot without
a keyboard attached.
• Mouse for pointing and clicking. Unless you chose a text-based operating
system, you will likely want one of these.
• Monitor This is where the pretty pictures go. They come in many forms,
the most common being CRT and LCD.
These are the parts that a standard PC will use. We are not considering
such esoterica as headless, touchscreen, or voice-controlled systems. You might
want to make a check list (perhaps using a spreadsheet) of parts to use as you go
about your process of research and selection. That way you wont find yourself
sitting down with a pile of brand new hardware only to find that you forgot an
essential component.

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