Just to add my 2 cents... > I'm about to buy a new computer. I have been offered a > really good deal on a P4 system. > But since the architecture is so different from previous > pentiums I am a little hecitant.
Unless you've been offered a REALLY good deal, it's likely worse than the cost of an Athlon. The price differential between Athlons and P4s and high-end P3s is pretty steep. > Will I have to recompile all major components in > order to get decent speed with the p4? Someone else has already addressed this, but I thought I might throw in a piece of advice for anyone who upgrades often, or might reconfigure their system... If you compile an optimized kernel for a specific architechture, like i686, be sure to keep a working "vanilla" kernel in case you have to swap the disk to another computer with a different architechture. If you have a hardware failure, for instance, and need to move the disk with Debian from an Athlon system to a Pentium Pro or something, it won't boot. This might only happen to a small number of people, but it's darn frustrating in an emergency. > Will there be special p4-debs? Unlikely. > Whats the best thing to do? Buy an AMD-CPU instead? > I just thought I'd get an opinion from you guys before I spend all my money. Buy an AMD...it's a MUCH better investment. And, I'd recommend buying the parts and putting it together yourself rather than buying a complete system. The 1GHz Athlons are at a pretty reasonable price point right now, (I bought mine when it was semi-reasonable) you should be able to put together a system with a 30GB ATA 100 drive, 256MB of 133 MHz RAM and a decent AGP video card for well under $1,000. Good luck! Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ: 43599611 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
