I already told you about my old computer's failing CD writer. So I was looking for a new computer, and lo and behold, right at this time, Aldi came again with a very interesting offer : the Medion MD8800, a PentiumD based dual-core 64bit system, with wireless lan aboard, a tv card, SATA disks and much more. It took a while before I wiped out the Windows XP installation, cause I needed all the info about the included hardware.

I chose for a Debian unstable based install, simply because it's the only distribution I know to have good x86-64 support (except maybe Gentoo). The installation wasn't very easy, cause the Debian installer contained a 2.6.8 kernel, which had great trouble detecting my SATA disks. Using the updated netinstall iso from Lennart Sorensen fixed this problem.

I completed the install without any problem (a fully based 64 bit system !), but now the real work starts : building a customized kernel, restoring my personal files & preferences, and populating the system with the everyday used programs. The machine is called Gundabad, after the Orc capital in the north of the Misty Mountains (yep, I keep using Tolkien as a source to name my home computers).

The box is fast; so fast it makes my ADSL connection to crawl like a snail. Oh yes, when I'm done setting up the machine, I'll put up a page with all the information on it in order to install Linux on it.