A PC like that mentioned in the article should be free. A 533 MHz Celeron, 512 MB of ram, 80 GB hard drive? Don't you have any family? I know of several old computers meeting or exceeding those specs that various acquaintances have sitting around.
Personally, I would spend another $150-200 and get a processor that was top-of-the-line a couple years ago (instead of nearly a decade ago), faster/more RAM (512 MB is solid for Linux, but with 1 GB you'll never have to worry about it), and a faster (if not bigger) hard drive.
In my opinion, advertising a crappy $150 PC is almost a disservice to the build-your-own crowd, when you could get a similar-quality one for free from someone you know or for cheaper from a used computer store. Noting that you can build a very solid computer for $300-400, though, is really something.
I guess I was in error, then, but I don't see that 1200 figure noted anywhere on that page, so I'm going to call it an honest mistake ;-).
But still, the machine mentioned is no better than the PC I bought 6 years ago before my freshman year of college (and currently have sitting in the closet because I have no use for it). It's a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB ram, 60 GB hard drive, CD-RW and DVD drives, and a GeForce2 graphics card, and it was far from top of the line when I bought it for somewhere between $600-800 (I don't remember). Oh, and it came with Windows XP, which served me well for four years before I replaced it with FreeBSD.
Personally, I would spend another $150-200 and get a processor that was top-of-the-line a couple years ago (instead of nearly a decade ago), faster/more RAM (512 MB is solid for Linux, but with 1 GB you'll never have to worry about it), and a faster (if not bigger) hard drive.
In my opinion, advertising a crappy $150 PC is almost a disservice to the build-your-own crowd, when you could get a similar-quality one for free from someone you know or for cheaper from a used computer store. Noting that you can build a very solid computer for $300-400, though, is really something.