I maintain a college network that uses nothing but the Dell OptiPlex hardware since 1999. I'd suggest using nothing but the newer ones in the gray charcoal/black colors. I think the oldest of the black ones are the GX150s. The GX110s are the newest of the beige, lighter colored cases. Anything in the GX110 and older have loud hard drives that whine like you wouldn't believe. However, this isn't much of an issue since I don't think anyone wants a MythTV system with the 10G or so hard drives they came with.
Do yourself a favor and look at the Dell message forums (sorry, don't know the link off-hand) about what Linux distros work or don't work. I had issues with the onboard video card not working in SuSE on one of the newer desktop form-factor boxes. This one didn't have AGP either. They do that to keep the small form factor for business use. OptiPlexes are their office line. Dimensions are for their home users. -Khanh -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Levine Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 4:43 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [mythtv-users] Dell OptiPlex for Myth front-end Hi, all. I currently have an "under the stairs" MythTV backend (dual PVR250 tuners), and a single XBox front-end in the living room. I'm thinking about a second front-end in the bedroom, however I was thinking about a small form factor PC instead of another XBox. At work, I have a (small form factor) Dell OptiPlex GX260 on my desk, and it is VERY quiet (at least as heard in my office, to my ears). So of course, it seems like it would make a good front-end. It's way overpowered for a Myth front-end, of course, and it's a bit more than I'm looking to spend. However, I see quite a few older small form factor OptiPlex GX models available cheaply, used, online. Does anyone know if the older models were just as quiet? I read online that the GX50 line didn't have an AGP slot (so if you wanted to add an after-market video card instead of the onboard video, you were stuck with PCI). But I'm not sure about other GX models. I don't do HDTV, just SDTV, so I can go for a fairly old machine, I think, without worrying about being underpowered. Cheap and quiet are my watchwords! And, of course, if anyone is actually using a GX, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks, David
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