Modem purchase

The life of the electronics in a PC is about 10 years. As long as the computer is cleaned out of dust on a regular basis, and the fans are maintained.

We have computers at work that pre-date the IBM PC that we keep running because the cost of revising our custom software exceeds the cost of maintaining these antiques.

Functionally, for modern software, a PC has a life of around 3 to 5 years.

Unfortunately, I could not find a minimum recommended CPU speed at Mandrake's site.
I generally recommend that you have at least 2X the minimum system requirements for ANY software package or OS.

As to your controller-less modem, I would recommend against it.

Get yourself an external serial port modem.
1 big advantage of an external modem, is that should the phone line have a surge, you are less apt to loose your PC.

Alternately, check with the modem or modem chip manufacture. Many have Linux drivers available.

Chas

k! In linux, hardware is not as oboslete as with windows, as first answer suguested if you take good care of pc it will last a very long time.

I have p-1 166mhz and a pc-386-16mhz that run linux and my new p4-1.4ghz. Generally if the machine is working and can hold up to the work you are giving it why spend money on new hardware. However this is said with caution!! Do not use winmodems on any professional class machine!!! whether it be linux or windows. Linux has attempted to work around the winmodem problem for years and only 1 out of 1000 machines succeed and at that they run poorly.

Upgrading a computer when talking linux does not make much sense since the majority of linux software works best on older equipment as a rule.

You haven't said what you plan on using the machine for so i will give just a brief synopsis of what a machine can do.

your pentium III-633 with 320mb ram will handle linux for most purposes. You didn't say how much harddisk space you are using/have or if your dual booting

Here's a hint of what i have in use if it helps

p4-1400 128mb ram 120gb harddisk 52xcd-r 48xcdrw 2xNic sb-128 64mbriva agp video 6xusb 3-printers and is 3-booting win98 win2k linux 9.1 runs great with speeds 5x faster under linux as with win98 and 2x faster under linux as with win2k my only complaint is that I can't use my webcam and scanner under linux 9.1 but have no trouble using under linux 7.0.

If linux is only op system and you have more than 2gb of harddisk your current system (except winmodem) will work fine for some time to come. It is new enough that should you experience cpu/mbo/ or pwr supply trouble you can look to upgrade the mbo/ram/cpu &/or pwr & cabinet at that time. sounds like the person giving advice is wanting to cash-in by having you buy all new.

further info can be found at my website at
http :// alltechdevelopment . netfirms . com

good luck
rick