Building a PC can be a way of saving money and having the PC of your dreams. Some people may want to build a dream PC, but not have the cash to do so. By choosing to use free and open source software, PC builders can cut hundreds of dollars off of the price of their dream machine. Below are a few ideas that can cut the cost of a PC build by using free and open source software over proprietary software such as Microsoft Windows.
1. GNU/Linux as your operating system
There's no better way of save money when building your own PC, than using GNU/Linux instead of Windows. By choosing Linux you instantly save around $100 and up to a astonishing $285. This is money that would have went to purchasing a copy of Microsoft Windows for only one PC. And the savings don't stop there, in Linux virtually all the software is free. In Windows you'll have to purchase MS Office, a good disc authoring suite and photo shop for image manipulation. For Linux there is Open Office instead of MS Office, K3B and Brasero for disc authoring and GIMP and Blender for image manipulation. Even if you choose to use Windows, Open Office and GIMP can still be used, but K3B and Basero are only for Linux.
2. No Hard Drive
Believe it or not a hard drive is totally optional when building a PC. Omitting the hard drive can reduce the cost of a PC by at least $40 and up to hundreds of dollars. This will work best for people who have servers with large hard drives and years of experience with PC building and installing operating systems. For experienced Linux users this can be accomplished in three ways(from hardest to easiest):
A. Diskless Boot, Diskless Nodes and Network Booting:
I won't go into major detail here, but basically you are booting a complete operating system from the hard drive of another computer or server over the Ethernet port. I would not recommend this procedure for beginners, as it can be a very tedious task to complete. Instructions about diskless boot can be found at these sites:
Diskless Network Boot
Diskless Workstation
Diskless Ubuntu
B. Boot from USB flash drive:
With a large enough flash drive, a complete Linux operating system can be installed and ran over the usb. I've manage to run Debian from a 1GB flash drive with openbox, XFCE, thunar and VLC. Installing Linux to a flash drive is not a very difficult task for anyone who has ever installed his/her own operating system. Linux can be installed to a flash drive the same way it would be installed to a hard drive. For more about Linux on a flash drive visit here.
C. Boot from CD/DVD:
Now to the easiest method. Simply obtain a Linux live CD/DVD that fits your needs for a desktop and use sftp or fish protocol with nautilus or konqueror to access your files from another computer acting as a server. This method would require knowledge of ssh and setting up a network.
3. Less RAM
I've seen computers advertised with 8 or more gigabytes of RAM. Now this might be necessary in Windows, but that much RAM would be overkill in Linux. A computer running Linux will work fine with 1 gigabyte of RAM. The amount of RAM for A PC depends on the applications and desktop environment being used. 512 megabytes of RAM is still possible with window managers like openbox and the XFCE desktop environment. I recommend 2 gigabytes of RAM since it is not very expensive.
4. No Optical Drive
Building a PC without a Optical drive may seem odd to some, but it is another PC part that is totally optional. The first thing that might come to mind is how do I run the operating system without a optical drive and hard drive. That question has already been answered above with diskless booting and Linux on a flash drive. This option works best for those who share content over a network.
Conclusion
So how much money can be saved by building a PC with Linux as the operating system, no hard drive, less RAM and no optical drive? Lets take a look at some prices of the excluded PC parts.
A OEM version of Windows 7 Home Premium is about $100.
A cheap hard drive can be found for around $40.
Most DVD drives are around $30.
Opting for 2GB of RAM instead of 4GB will save about $40.
That's at least $210 saved.
Please keep in mind that these saving are mostly possible do to the use of free and open source software and the use of a server.
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