Home system working again...

My desktop PC crashed for the last time a couple of weeks ago, and I'm finally back to being online properly instead of having to use the laptop through the cell phone.  (Anybody got madwifi working properly with the current Debian?  I don't have enough space left on its hard drive to unpack kernel source, so I can't even try compiling it myself on there.)

Given that I worked in the computer field for ten years (tech, sales, phone support, internet project manager, etc.) I initially didn't even consider looking at prebuilt stuff.  Then I found out that the only place I could buy a motherboard in this town closed down last year.

I looked around a bit, and eventually settled on a Compaq SR5333WM.  Not bad for $600, and I'm even starting to think Vista isn't quite as bad as I'd expected.  I've got my old 200G hard drive in it now, and dedicated to Debian, but I haven't had time to hammer out all the bugs and get it all running again, so in the meantime, I appear to have Vista to the point where I can actually be somewhat productive on it.  I guess we'll find out what wins once I sit down and play with Linux on it long enough to either get everything working, or at least decide what won't work.

The 19" widescreen LCD monitor rocks for DVDs, by the way.  The actual movie view for anything in widescreen appears to actually be bigger than on our 21" TV, and the resolution and color are definitely better.  It makes some web pages look a bit weird, though.