[Discuss] I need a recommendation for a Linux-compatible high-end PC builder

[Daniel AJ Sokolov]

On 2018-01-09 07:59 AM, Alan W. Irwin wrote:
> On 2018-01-09 00:19-0500 Daniel AJ Sokolov wrote:
> 
>> Hello,
>>
>> I would suggest taking a look at Dell's PowerEdge Tower servers. I 
>> recently bought the T30 with a Xeon-CPU for my home office, and it is 
>> surprisingly quiet.
> 
> Hi Daniel:
> 
> Thanks for your feedback concerning your recent Dell purchase. 
> Historically they had a bad reputation because of their efforts to
> distort the PC "standard" to try and lock in customers to just use
> Dell repair parts.  Do you (or anyone else here) know if that lock-in
> factor is still considered an issue for Dell hardware?

I haven't had to repair anything on my Dell server yet. :-) I know that 
the motherboard Dell uses in the T30 is of their own design. However, it 
was easy to add a random SATA-controller I bought from Newegg.

> Assuming that is not an issue any more where did you buy your T30,

On the Canadian version of Dell.com for about CAD 550 plus tax.

>are all components of it working well on Linux, 

AFAIK yes. They are usually happy to ship their servers with Redhat 
installed. I've installed Linux Mint and it works fine for me.

> and can you give
> me a URL reference to a Dell box designer (where you can price
> adding/subtracting various components from the final package)
> that I can compare with the zareason box designer results?

There is the Dell online shop - some models are more configurable than 
others. They have some AMD devices, too, but not many.

Make sure you have the right country version of Dell's shop (US vs CA).

You can also chat with their sales or tech staff online, that works 
pretty well.

However, I don't know if they would build a massive machine like the one 
you have described now in a desktop case. They may only do that in a 
server rack format.

BR
Daniel AJ