Buying a desktop

[asit sheth]

hi guys,
am located in delhi, india. I was thinking of buying a pc on which i can practice making applications for eventually giving the java certifications including SCEA. So i want it to be able to support ejb/j2EE architectures. please suggest what sort of specification should i go for...also any IDE's like WSAD that i can freely download or maybe a nominal cost. am using WSAD and eclipse in office pc (512MB RAM and P4 2.4 GHz). my budget i estimated was around 30k. will it cover all this... if not what will be the deviations etc..
Would love it if any one could give an estimate...
Thanks for reading

[Arjun Shastry]

Recently I read one ad.Some vendor was selling Linux Desktop for as low as Rs 16000.128 MB RAM,40 GB HDD,Celeron,15 inch moniter,speakers,CDROM etc.Try to enquire in Delhi about price of Linux Desktop.With all set up,it should not go beyond RS 25,000.
[ February 04, 2005: Message edited by: Arjun Shastry ]

[asit sheth]

Originally posted by Arjun Shastry:
Recently I read one ad.Some vendor was selling Linux Desktop for as low as Rs 16000.128 MB RAM,40 GB HDD,Celeron,15 inch moniter,speakers,CDROM etc.Try to enquire in Delhi about price of Linux Desktop.With all set up,it should not go beyond RS 25,000.

[ February 04, 2005: Message edited by: Arjun Shastry ]

should i go for a linux OS..? and what about supporting j2EE, EJB will 128 MB be enuff...? i have a 512MB here and its insufficient. some one said like 1GB RAM is needed for bigger applications. how about buying a separate server... what would that cost me economically..and could you please elaborate on the type of extra stuff that i would need to set up for the same...
I am a newbie.
Thanks...
[ February 04, 2005: Message edited by: asit sheth ]

[Jeroen Wenting]

128MB RAM is not enough by far. I wouldn't go for less than 1GB myself.
Same with the 15" screen. 17" is the absolute minimum, 19" or larger preferred (I'm using a 19" at home and am seriously considering adding a 17" TFT next to it to get more screen realestate).

Linux is no problem if you can live with the poor performance, the lack of software, and the far more convoluted installation and configuration system (plus the lack of hardware support).
Java works well on it.

Myself I would not seriously consider Linux in its current state for a workstation. For a non-critical server it's now good enough, but for a business critical server I'd choose a real Unix like Solaris or AIX.

[asit sheth]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
128MB RAM is not enough by far. I wouldn't go for less than 1GB myself.
Same with the 15" screen. 17" is the absolute minimum, 19" or larger preferred (I'm using a 19" at home and am seriously considering adding a 17" TFT next to it to get more screen realestate).

Linux is no problem if you can live with the poor performance, the lack of software, and the far more convoluted installation and configuration system (plus the lack of hardware support).
Java works well on it.

Myself I would not seriously consider Linux in its current state for a workstation. For a non-critical server it's now good enough, but for a business critical server I'd choose a real Unix like Solaris or AIX.

so what would you suggest..am also thinking of 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD and 17"screen. what should i need to be able to develop enterprise architectures..
appreciate your expertise..

[Ashok Mash]

IMHO, a configuration similar to that of your Office PC should serve you well, as far as J2EE development, and certification preparation is concerned. I don't think you would have any problem running J2EE servers or IDEs (eg: Eclipse) on a 512MB machine - I have done that before, it wouldn't fly, but it sure is not too slow either.

However, more RAM, HD and CPU cycles is never a bad thing - especially if you want to use this PC as your gaming and entertainment console as well. Ripping and encoding DVDs, latest games (UT2004, HalfLife2 to name a few) etc are really memory and process hungry, and in that case, I would recommend a faster CPU with 1GB or more RAM with a >120GB @ 7200 RPM HD and also a decent size monitor (19 inch or above) to go with a decent graphics card (ATI or NAedia, with at least 128MB Video RAM).

HTH!
[ February 04, 2005: Message edited by: Ashok Mash ]

[Marc Peabody]

I believe 256 is the minimum requirement for WSAD but it doesn't work so well (installation is a memory hog and so the minimum for installation is a bit higher). 512 should be plenty as long as you keep other background processes to a minimum.

[Helen Thomas]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

Linux is no problem if you can live with the poor performance, the lack of software, and the far more convoluted installation and configuration system (plus the lack of hardware support).
Java works well on it.

Myself I would not seriously consider Linux in its current state for a workstation. For a non-critical server it's now good enough, but for a business critical server I'd choose a real Unix like Solaris or AIX.

Hmmm. Maybe I have to reconsider the plan. I saw AIX on ebay for �200 or thereabouts.

[Stan James]

I run WSAD with a full EJB application on my laptop at work - 1 gig memory, not all that fast. But I love how things run at home with 2 gig memory and 3.2 ghz.

[Jeroen Wenting]

mind that AIX isn't a desktop operating system... it's purely serverside, no graphical interface for example.

[Helen Thomas]

I do have Solaris 7.0 - I've taken it out of it's plastic cover and looked at it twice. None of the machines I had seemed worth trying to install it on. In addition getting creative with Solaris appears to be a no go area. I believe Solaris is going to be Open-sourced soon. I heard that AIX also might be open-sourced in due course.
[ February 05, 2005: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[ali haider]

am also planning to buy a desktop. have decided on a 1GB Ram, 120 GB HDD and a 17"screen. in delhi it should cost somewhere around 30k. could anybody please guide me as to how I should set it up.. which IDE and java delopment environment etc. I want it to build j2EE - WebServices - ejb projects at home. Am working with a MNC but my job doesnt offer me good projects to work on, mostly maintenance. So was thinking of doing some fun work at home.
thanks a lot,
Abhi

[Jeroen Wenting]

IDE: whatever takes your fancy. If you can afford it JBuilder Enterprise is the cream of the crop.
AppServer: whatever you want. Orion is free for development, educational, and non-commercial work as well as a solid product which saves you a lot of money. JBuilder Enterprise comes with a development license for Borland's appserver.

Or just ask your company to supply you with licenses for the products you use at work. Often they can give you those at low or no cost.

[Ben Souther]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

Linux is no problem if you can live with the poor performance, the lack of software, and the far more convoluted installation and configuration system (plus the lack of hardware support).
Java works well on it.

Myself I would not seriously consider Linux in its current state for a workstation. For a non-critical server it's now good enough, but for a business critical server I'd choose a real Unix like Solaris or AIX.

Linux with Open Office, Evolution, and the Gimp has more than suited my needs since July of 2001. Most distros have excellent hardware support these days. I don't really do much GUI programming but I can say that server side java has always been faster with Linux than with windows on the same hardware. I'm not sure when you've last installed it but it's no more involved than installing Windows these days.

I'm also enjoying a blissful state of ignorance about what the current viruses and worms are. This is in part due to a lack of interest in linux by the current set of virus writers and script kiddies. Maybe that will change but I doubt it.

-Ben
[ February 06, 2005: Message edited by: Ben Souther ]

[Ashok Mash]

If you were to go on Windows platform, I would think Eclipse would be a good IDE, with its free plugins to do just about everything - TogetherJ, Omondo etc for design, Oxygen for anything to do with XML, plugins to various source control systems, free profilers etc - and you could use any of the open source Application servers to get yourself going - JBoss may be?

[Jeroen Wenting]

I last installed a Linux desktop 3rd quarter 2004.
I was indeed pleasantly surprised by the improvements made in the year past (on the same machine I'd been unable to install 4 separate distributions during 2003 despite repeated attempts and support from some gurus).
But still it needed manual tweaking in config files to even get my screen to work correctly under X (in itself an improvement as in the best running earlier distro it wouldn't work at all).

Still it's slower than was Windows 2000 on the same machine despite me turning off most flashy things and going for a relatively low weight Gnome theme.

It's not quite there yet but getting nearer. Maybe if the Linux community were to loose their attitude of considering everything Microsoft does as evil and incorrect and actually starts getting some ideas about usability and application interoperability from them they'll even get there.

[ali haider]

Originally posted by Ashok Mash:
If you were to go on Windows platform, I would think Eclipse would be a good IDE, with its free plugins to do just about everything - TogetherJ, Omondo etc for design, Oxygen for anything to do with XML, plugins to various source control systems, free profilers etc - and you could use any of the open source Application servers to get yourself going - JBoss may be?

Sounds good. Particularly since my org wont be giving me any free licence of WSAD. I guess i should stick to open source stuff.. that will be easier to upgrade.

[ali haider]

was also thinking of a linux os. will help me learn unix also alongside, something my job profile wont. plus if it agrees with java/j2EE thats all i need. so if i should go for an linux os, what IDE or dev environment would i need.... i am totally naive in this.
Thanks,
Abhi

[Ashok Mash]

If you are totally new to Linux/Unix, I would not recommend any *x distribution as your main OS. You could install Windows, learn basics of Linux from a live cd distribution like Knopix (boot from CD to work with Linux, no need to install anything), and as you get more comfortable with Linux, you could install it in a different partition of the hard disk and configure your machine to dual boot.

Cheers!

[Ben Souther]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

It's not quite there yet but getting nearer. Maybe if the Linux community were to loose their attitude of considering everything Microsoft does as evil and incorrect and actually starts getting some ideas about usability and application interoperability from them they'll even get there.

We'll probably have to respectfully agree to disagree on whether it's there yet.

There are plenty of people in the Linux community who will always hate MS for being MS. Some of it is deserved, some not.

I think the competition has pushed both sides to work harder. There have been huge advancements in usability made from companies like Redhat and Suse. I just set my mom up with Redhat/Bluecurve and she took to it without issue. Likewise, MS is starting to pay more attention to security issues and scripting features. Windows Server 2003 looks like a big improvement over is predecessor in those respects.

As for windowing speed. The windows GUI is nested right into the kernel and is intractable. Because of this, it's much more efficient and, thus, faster. XWindows is a true client-server app and is heavily layered. The benefit to this is that you can simple shut it off if you're not using it, making your system run much leaner. A more fair comparison would be XWindows vs the GUI that Mac made for OSX.

There are trade offs and different people will have different preferences but to simply say, "it's not stable" or "it's not there yet" would be inaccurate. We shouldn't let our bias against MS get in the way of giving sound advice, nor should you let your feelings about the Linux community do the same in the other direction.
[ February 07, 2005: Message edited by: Ben Souther ]

[ali haider]

Originally posted by Ashok Mash:
If you are totally new to Linux/Unix, I would not recommend any *x distribution as your main OS. You could install Windows, learn basics of Linux from a live cd distribution like Knopix (boot from CD to work with Linux, no need to install anything), and as you get more comfortable with Linux, you could install it in a different partition of the hard disk and configure your machine to dual boot.

Cheers!

Well I was of the opinion that you dont really learn anything unless u fall in the water. with linux as my os i would learn much more and much faster (out of desperation i guess) than i would using any book or software. i know this by my own experience in projects. u suddenly need to learn so much coz its all related. and your learning curve is no longer linear. so i was thinking, since i am really keen on learning linux/unix what better way than install it on my pc and then i would have to learn it to make the thing work
what do you say.. and if u agree,what ide or dev env would you suggest

[Jeroen Wenting]

I think the competition has pushed both sides to work harder. There have been huge advancements in usability made from companies like Redhat and Suse.

I never said competition is a bad thing, nor that improvements haven't been made...


As for windowing speed. The windows GUI is nested right into the kernel and is intractable. Because of this, it's much more efficient and, thus, faster. XWindows is a true client-server app and is heavily layered. The benefit to this is that you can simple shut it off if you're not using it, making your system run much leaner. A more fair comparison would be XWindows vs the GUI that Mac made for OSX.

This doesn't matter to the end user.
It's a typical technical explanation for a non-technical problem.
If your mother has to wait a minute for your Swing application to show its GUI (for example), she's not going to be happy.
If you tell her it needs that time because of its magnificent multilayer design that's so easy to extend and maintain and has won prizes at OO design contests she is still not going to be a happy user (she may tell you how proud she if for you winning those prizes though).

This is one area where Linux developers still have a lot to learn if they want to really move into the mainstream.
For over a decade their main userbase has consisted mainly of themselves and other techies. Those are people who will eat such explanations and accept them.
Your average John Doe will not accept them, he won't even comprehend them. He'll see a slowly reacting application and not be happy.

[Ashok Mash]

Originally posted by abhi maj:
Well I was of the opinion that you dont really learn anything unless u fall in the water.

Sure, its all up to your own priorities indeed! Eclipse will work with Linux as well, I was told that there will be some tweaking required to get it going, but it works, I don't know any better as I haven't done much coding on Linux platform.

Cheers.

[Ben Souther]

This doesn't matter to the end user.
It's a typical technical explanation for a non-technical problem.
If your mother has to wait a minute for your Swing application to show its GUI (for example), she's not going to be happy.
If you tell her it needs that time because of its magnificent multilayer design that's so easy to extend and maintain and has won prizes at OO design contests she is still not going to be a happy user (she may tell you how proud she if for you winning those prizes though).

She's actually happy with the improvment in performance.
Switching her over to linux was easier than explaining that her windows box is slow because the hard-drive is more than 6% fragmented but we can't defrag because there are errors on the disk and it's going to be difficult to scan the disk for errors because something is running that keeps writing to it, even though she is not running any programs.

Also, the swing apps that I use seem to move just as fast on FC2 as they do on XP-Pro -- same box, dual boot.

Your point is certainly valid though, I would never be able to get my 13 year old gaming nephew to swith even if the games he plays were available.

As I said before, the Linux community does understand this (most of em anyway) and have been working hard on usablity. There are also plenty of technical answers, that end users don't want to hear about, on the Windows end. They just know that the current situation is not working for them.
[ February 08, 2005: Message edited by: Ben Souther ]

[ali haider]

Originally posted by Ashok Mash:


Sure, its all up to your own priorities indeed! Eclipse will work with Linux as well, I was told that there will be some tweaking required to get it going, but it works, I don't know any better as I haven't done much coding on Linux platform.

Cheers.

thanks a lot....
Abhi