It's that time again (big TY btw)! $600-800 budget. NOT made in China challenge!

[inf0wrs]

I. Thank you

Never would have been able to build and operate and troubleshoot and fix a build with YOU great persons!

It sure gives easy to understand, varied, and unlimited options. It makes a daunting task do and seem doable.

And it sure helps me along my rookie learning mistakes!

II. Had to leave my old stuff behind when I fled to Florida.

Have a disability, and not breathing oxygen has been a big no-no from my doctors for a LONG time. Luckily Florida allowed me to restart life fresh, not hindered by discrimination against my physical disabilities. (thank you governor DeSantis!). What I need here is a work station. You guys know how to juice up systems nice, and I'd like to relearn this and learn Linux.

I kind of forgot many things, except how to NOT fry a motherboard on accident. Luckily you guys have an incredibly detailed and easy to follow guide. Thanks again!

III. Budget is 600-800.

I have a TV monitor and a hub, and will need everything else fresh if possible. How hard is it to learn and use Linux? Do I just create a bootable flash drive to install?

IV. As a project, I want to avoid slave labor. Would prefer US sourced materials, but the costs run too high for my budget, I think. (Made in Taiwan ok! Korea and Vietnam seem to use more honest wages- definitely not CCP/mexico cartel sweatshops etc.)

Not sure if you guys are good at sourcing things or know anything in this regard. But any help given would be appreciated. It's actually quite a challenge to avoid slave labor in purchases these days!

Have an amazing day, remember to take your zinc, vitamin C/D3/K etc!

Thank you again for any help you can give. Sorry if I sound like a retard. There's companies like https://puri.sm/ starting to offer usa made sourced phones, but they're 2k! Markets take a while to shift. but they will.

[breadisfunny]

a graphics card ALONE is going to cost you anywhere from 600-800$ in this climate...so i'm not sure what exactly you expect to build with that amount...

[Viikkis]

a graphics card ALONE is going to cost you anywhere from 600-800$ in this climate...so i'm not sure what exactly you expect to build with that amount...

Unless they don't buy a graphics card. For a workstation integrated graphics could be just fine unless they actually need more rendering power.

[jellmoo]

I'll leave the dudes who are better at parts picking help out with that. I'm not really sure how lucky you'll be not sourcing parts that were made in China though. I'm pretty sure that the bulk of WW assembly takes place there. That being said, this link might give a little insight on some stuff: https://techbuyersguru.com/750-budget-gaming-pc-build

---

When it comes to Linux, it really is about as easy as flashing a USB stick with a Linux distro and booting it up. A tool like Rufus will come in handy for flashing a bootable ISO file.

For some fun articles on a variety of Linux topics, take a look here:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-tips/

Picking the right dsitro is part of the fun. https://distrowatch.com is a place that has write ups of a metric ton of them, giving ou some info and letting you gauge their popularity.

Which distro to use is about as contentious a subject as you can find in the Linux world, and there really is no right answer. My take is to start with either Ubuntu or Linux Mint, as they are probably the most supported by the community with the least initial complexity.

You can always download a few, pop onto your USB stick and boot each one up and play around so you get a feel, you don't need to do an install right away.

[Drusin]

https://distrowatch.com

You know, it's probably a great website but man it's lacking in the looks department

[jellmoo]

You know, it's probably a great website but man it's lacking in the looks department

It's not the prettiest site normally, but it doesn't usually look *that* ugly. I think there's something funny going on on your end.

[Drusin]

It's not the prettiest site normally, but it doesn't usually look *that* ugly. I think there's something funny going on on your end.

You're right, that was my fault, I forgot I had my Dark Reader extension on and it was converting the pages colors. I know they won't see it but I apologize to the DistroWatch team their website looks fine

[inf0wrs]

thanks for heads up

i have no idea what to expect.

just mapping out whatever budget I need for later then.

thanks!

[Djuntas]

thanks for heads up

i have no idea what to expect.

just mapping out whatever budget I need for later then.

thanks!

So, in terms of avoiding china worst will be case, case fans and similar bits.

Anything construction I dont think they do anywhere else if you buy normal cases.

I know HDD's are made in...Argh, wanna say Thailand only. Not sure about Nvme or SSD.

Taiwain has TSMC...Cant trust Intel cause of their use of many fab's, so not sure how it works.

Samsung makes GPU's, but not sure what fab/location.

Ram is...Well Micron or Samsung. So Micron is US company, but dont know where their fabs are really.

Honestly...non-china will be hard. Anyway GPU prices...GL

[Temp name]

So, in terms of avoiding china worst will be case, case fans and similar bits.

Anything construction I dont think they do anywhere else if you buy normal cases.

I know HDD's are made in...Argh, wanna say Thailand only. Not sure about Nvme or SSD.

Taiwain has TSMC...Cant trust Intel cause of their use of many fab's, so not sure how it works.

Samsung makes GPU's, but not sure what fab/location.

Ram is...Well Micron or Samsung. So Micron is US company, but dont know where their fabs are really.

Honestly...non-china will be hard. Anyway GPU prices...GL

TSMC also runs a fab in mainland China
90% sure Micron also does
Samsung I don't know

Another issue is CPU/GPUs, since stock coolers are OEM'd by cooler master in China, and I'm not sure if other brands also have CM OEM stuff for them

[Kagthul]

You pretty much cant build a computer that doesn’t have parts (or parts of parts) from China. There are some parts (or components of some parts) that are only made in China. Some of them are made in literaly a single place in the world.