the unfortunate thing with dell is that they are dell specific parts.

that is with almost every pre-packaged computer. HP, Dell, Emachines, if he is going to run linux, he doesnt need a very high-end computer anyway. Just a big enough hard drive and about 512mb of memory.

And with a pre-built system he might get plenty of extra software he might not want like windows.

I think this software that comes with the computers is crap. Some people though will base their buy decision on the content of the software bundle. They get all screwed because they think a 3ghz cpu is just a 3ghz cpu. They wont look at the other specs like FSB, cache... Same thing with RAM or Video, for them, 128mb is 128mb, the core or memory is ignored. I know people with that mentality they think they get good deals but the vendors tell them white lies to make sales. Of course these are people that dont know their computer stuff. Just to say dont let someone you know buy computers by themselves if they dont know much about PCs or they might get talked into buying crap.

these days $500 is sortof a small budget for a computer. You can get a pretty decent computer if you build it yourself but nothing that is really gonna last you that long. everything is constantly being upgraded so to buy a low-end machine now sortof makes you at a disadvantage because in a few years it will be out of date and still be able to use but most programs might not be made for machines nemore. programs and operating systems are moving closer and closer to being fully 64 bit(i am not certain but i think windows longhorn is gonna use some 64 bit applications) So just so you know you should spend wisely, it all really depends on wat you need the computer for, simple tasks this will be fine for years, for gaming this thing wont last against games already out, for pretty much any sortof development thing (ie programming, web design, 3d modelling) this machine probably wont do.

buying a machine from a vendor can yield similar results as building your own some times, you just need to catch good special
but that really depends on the person making the decisions
if you don't know much about hardware behind the machine chances are building your own won't yield a better result and cause you more problems long run
but that’s not really the case here

it is true tho that the major downside to prebuilt systems with little way around it is a bunch of software that comes with the machine
and there isn't much to do about that unless you look at smaller vendor barebones or refurbished


second thing
i can see why he doesn't want to spend much on a machine that won't last more than a few years
about 2 or 3 years and things will be changing fairly drastically
there is a few new storage technologies on the verge of being released
a portable HD/blue ray
physical drives easily capable of doing 2 - 5 terabytes per drive
about a year or 2 until nvidia finally blends in all their developments from the PS3 into their graphics cards
64bit architecture yes its around now but kind of useless when there isn't much applications optimized for it
memory capacity and speed will likely double by the time the machine becomes obsolete

there isn't much of a point seriously investing in a computer now