Last night I took my old workhorse Dell Inspiron 620 i5 that I had been using to run Lubuntu off a 32GB Cruzer Fit Nano thumb drive and put in:

• a new 1TB HD and
• a GeForce GT 640.

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 and after installing the tools I use (Ruby, Rails, Sublime, FireBug, Pocket, Skype, Evernote, mySQL, git, giggle, heroku, VLC, Flash downloader, iTunes 10 via Wine, and the Cairo Dock) I also now added Steam to the mix.

I connected the rig up to two monitors: 23″ Westinghouse (DVI) and a 27″ Acer (Mini HDMI).

I downloaded the free Team Fortress 2 from Valve and went through the training.

This HD and graphics card has really breathed new life into this workhorse and I look forward to using it on those rare times whenever I leave my 15″ rMBP.