Building new machine -- Ubuntu compatible?

[Rashkae]

Derek Maciel wrote:
> Some nice points you bring up. A few things I'd like to add though:
> 
> I won't be doing any gaming on Ubuntu, but instead, dual booting
> Windows 7 x64 (I don't have a licence key for Windows XP x64). When it
> comes to gaming, many of the games I like to play are only available
> to Windows, and my friend has recently purchased the Radeon, and I
> really like it, which is why I'm going with it. However, if you feel
> I'd get more performance on both Linux AND Windows for about the same
> price or maybe a bit more, than of course I'll go with the nVidia. ;)
> 

Now that's a tricky question... I don't really follow much in the gaming 
news, so I can't tell you which will be better for your purpose.. 
However, Nvidia, while still releasing Linux drivers, has all but 
abandoned Open Source developers, whereas AMD has been progressively 
releasing more and more of their drivers in working Open source 
editions, so not only will that Radeon 5000 work with AMD's binary 
driver, in the future, you won't need binary driver.  This is a really 
good thing, (mostly because ATI binary drivers are horrendously bad)

> 
> About the RAM: I've never had a computer with more than 512MB of RAM,
> and even the computer I'm using right now is 512MB. With that aside,
> I'm planning on buying a single 2GB stick of RAM just to get it built
> and to save up money for the graphics card, and then maybe later I'll
> buy an additional 4GB stick.
> 

Personally, I would never even consider buying a mini board.  With all 
the work I do refurbishing and updating older computers, the limitations 
of fewer slots always becomes a problem down the road.  For Long term 
system, spending the extra $40 - $50 now for a full ATX board is, 
IMNSHO, the way to go.

Modern systems get better performance with Dual Channel Memory 
configuration.  That requires that your memory DIMMS be installed in 
matched pairs.  IE, if you want 2GB ram, you would need two identical 
1GB DIMMS to get Dual Channel configuration.