289 lines
6.6 KiB
HTML
289 lines
6.6 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>Introduction</TITLE
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><META
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK
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REL="HOME"
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TITLE="The Unix Hardware Buyer HOWTO"
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HREF="index.html"><LINK
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TITLE="The Unix Hardware Buyer HOWTO"
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TITLE="Overview of the Market"
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HREF="overview.html"></HEAD
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><TR
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><TH
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COLSPAN="3"
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ALIGN="center"
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>The Unix Hardware Buyer HOWTO</TH
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="10%"
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ALIGN="left"
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><A
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>Prev</A
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>Next</A
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><HR
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="100%"></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect1"
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><H1
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CLASS="sect1"
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><A
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NAME="intro"
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></A
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>1. Introduction</H1
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="purpose"
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></A
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>1.1. Purpose of this document</H2
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><P
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>The purpose of this document is to give you the background
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information you need to be a savvy buyer of Intel hardware for running
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Unix. It is aimed especially at hackers and others with the technical
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skills and confidence to go to the Internet/mail-order channel, but
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contains plenty of useful advice for people buying store-front
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retail.</P
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><P
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>This document is maintained and periodically updated as a service to
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the net by Eric S. Raymond, who began it for the very best self-interested
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reason that he was in the market and didn't believe in plonking down
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several grand without doing his homework first (no, I don't get paid for
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this, though I have had a bunch of free software and hardware dumped on me
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as a result of it!). Corrections, updates, and all pertinent information
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are welcomed at <A
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HREF="mailto:esr@snark.thyrsus.com"
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TARGET="_top"
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>esr@snark.thyrsus.com</A
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>. The
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editorial <20>we’ reflects the generous contributions of many
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savvy Internetters.</P
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><P
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>If you email me questions that address gaps in the FAQ material,
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you will probably get a reply that says <SPAN
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CLASS="QUOTE"
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>"Sorry, everything I know
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about this topic is in the HOWTO"</SPAN
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>. If you find out the
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<EM
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>answer</EM
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> to such a question, please share it with
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me for the HOWTO, so everyone can benefit.</P
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><P
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>If you end up buying something based on information from this HOWTO,
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please do yourself and the net a favor; make a point of telling the vendor
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<SPAN
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CLASS="QUOTE"
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>"The HOWTO sent me"</SPAN
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> or some equivalent. If we can show
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vendors that this HOWTO influences a lot of purchasing decisions, we get
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leverage to change some things that need changing.</P
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><P
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>Note that in December 1996 I published an introductory article on
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building and tuning Linux systems summarizing much of the material in this
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HOWTO. It's <A
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HREF="http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/lj-howtobuild.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>available
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here</A
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>. In 2001 I published an article on building the <A
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HREF="http://www.catb.org/~esr//writings/ultimate-linux-box/"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Ultimate Linux
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Box</A
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>.</P
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><P
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>This Buyer's Guide actually dates back to 1992, when it was known as
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the <SPAN
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CLASS="QUOTE"
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>"PC-Clone Unix Hardware Buyer's Guide"</SPAN
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>; this was before Linux
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took over my world :-). Before that, portions of it were part of
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a Unix Buyer's Guide that I maintained back in the 1980s on USENET.</P
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><P
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>It may be a matter of historical interest that the page count of this
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guide peaked in mid-2001 and has been declining since. Video, sound, and
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other functions are migrating onto motherboards. Several bus types have
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disappeared, as have all the old-school backup technologies that couldn't
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scale up to match disk capacities, Spec sheets are getting
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simpler. Accordingly, there are parts that used to have whole sections to
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hemselves that I barely even write about anymore — mice, floppy disks,
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CD-ROM drives, and keyboards, for example, are utterly generic now,</P
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><P
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>Another consequence of the technology stabilizing is also that I'm
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updating this guide less often than I used to. Years can now go by without
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the PC market changing in any fundamental way. </P
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><P
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>In retrospect, the success of the ATX standard for motherboards in
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1998-1999 was probably the turning point. The PC industry has become
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sufficiently commoditized that your choices are now getting simpler rather
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than more complicated. This is a Good Thing.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="newversions"
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></A
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>1.2. New versions of this document</H2
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><P
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>New versions of the Unix Hardware Buyer HOWTO will be periodically be
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uploaded to various Linux WWW and FTP sites, including the LDP home
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page.</P
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><P
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>You can view the latest version of this on the World Wide Web via the
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URL <A
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HREF="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Unix-Hardware-Buyer-HOWTO/"
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TARGET="_top"
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>http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Unix-Hardware-Buyer-HOWTO/</A
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>.
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</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="feedback"
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></A
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>1.3. Feedback and corrections</H2
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><P
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>If you have questions or comments about this document, please
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feel free to mail Eric S. Raymond, at <A
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HREF="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com"
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TARGET="_top"
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> esr@thyrsus.com</A
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>. I welcome any
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suggestions or criticisms. If you find a mistake with this document,
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please let me know so I can correct it in the next
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version. Thanks.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="resources"
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></A
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>1.4. Related resources</H2
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><P
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>You may also want to look at the read the <A
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HREF="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO.html"
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TARGET="_top"
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>Hardware-HOWTO</A
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>. It lists hardware
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known to be compatible with Linux, and hardware known to be
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incompatible. I've also done a series of articles on <A
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HREF="http://www.catb.org/~esr//writings/ultimate-linux-box/"
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TARGET="_top"
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>The Ultimate Linux
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Box</A
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>.</P
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></DIV
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
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><HR
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
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SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
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WIDTH="100%"
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BORDER="0"
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CELLPADDING="0"
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CELLSPACING="0"
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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||
><A
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||
HREF="index.html"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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||
ALIGN="center"
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||
VALIGN="top"
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><A
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||
HREF="index.html"
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ACCESSKEY="H"
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>Home</A
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></TD
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||
><TD
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||
WIDTH="33%"
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||
ALIGN="right"
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||
VALIGN="top"
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><A
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||
HREF="overview.html"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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></TD
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||
></TR
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||
><TR
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||
><TD
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||
WIDTH="33%"
|
||
ALIGN="left"
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||
VALIGN="top"
|
||
>The Unix Hardware Buyer HOWTO</TD
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||
><TD
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||
WIDTH="34%"
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||
ALIGN="center"
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||
VALIGN="top"
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||
> </TD
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||
><TD
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||
WIDTH="33%"
|
||
ALIGN="right"
|
||
VALIGN="top"
|
||
>Overview of the Market</TD
|
||
></TR
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||
></TABLE
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></DIV
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></BODY
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></HTML
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> |