AZ Nomad

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:56:32 +0100, Wim Cossement <a@b.c> wrote:


>Hello Gentoo-ers,

>After almost 6 years of labor my machine finally died! :-/
>But I was able to do my thing on it as an IT'er and a big part of this I
>have to thank to Gentoo so I'll run it as well on my new machine but I'm
>not sure what to get yet, perhaps someone could help?

>It would be a PC for sure but the biggest question is about the type of
>CPU I'd be using.

>AMD or Intel?
>How many cores?
>32 or 64 bit?

>I have about ¤ 1000 - 1200 to spend and I don't really need a GPU or a
>screen if this might help a bit.

>Could someone point out some pro's and con's (personal experiences?) and
>a few possible candiates?

You need to describe what you're going to do with it. Suggestions for somebody
who only visits web pages and reads email are going to signiffigantly differ
from somebody who does application development, runs 3D games or who does video
editing.

David W Noon

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On Friday 23 Nov 2007 11:22 in article <fi6cpv$kee$1@snic.vub.ac.be> of
alt.os.linux.gentoo, Wim Cossement(a@b.c) wrote:

> David W Noon wrote:
[snip]
>> You decide on the "bittedness" of the kernel, glibc, etc., when you
>> do the installation. You set the CHOST, CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS
>> in /etc/make.conf and you specify the processor type in the kernel
>> configuration: there are separate selections for AMD Hammer (Opteron,
>> Athlon64, etc.) and Intel EM64T (Pentium D, Core2 Duo/Quad).
>
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags

You should take a hefty pinch of salt with some of the suggested
settings in that Wiki page. It is intended for complete newbies.

If you go with an Intel EM64T, I will post you mine here, before you
install; just ask when you are ready. They are easily changed for AMD
K8/Opteron/etc., processors.

[snip]
>> The /dev/hdb indicates a PATA (EIDE/ATAPI) connection for the drive,
>> using the old PATA driver modules in the kernel. The newer libsata
>> drivers configure these drives into the SCSI namespace
>> as /dev/sr0, /dev/sr1, etc.
>>
>> If you are using a SATA interface as well as the PATA one then you
>> have probably configured the kernel wrongly. This is one of the
>> touchy areas of newer hardware under Linux.
>
> The HD is SATA but the optical drives are PATA so I have to use both.
> And I probably lost track a bit when the kernel started using
> libata... Following the Gentoo SATA wiki now.

You will likely need to use the libsata drivers for both your PATA and
SATA interfaces. Mixing the older PATA drivers with SATA can cause all
kinds of problems, especially with IRQ handling.

>> Also, most new motherboards don't have many PATA connectors --
>> typically only one. They have SATA connectors instead. Your old hard
>> drives might need some fiddling with adaptor connectors to get them
>> to work very, very slowly.
>
> I'll try to get an SATA only system then.

It depends what other peripherals you want to connect. If you want
ATAPI-connected CD/DVD-ROM and/or CD-RW/DVD+RW/-RW/-RAM drive(s) then a
PATA interface will be needed somewhere. But the typical modern mobo
has 1 PATA and 6 SATA connectors.

>> It looks to me that you are really faced with buying most of a new
>> system. You can probably keep your keyboard, mouse and screen.
>> Everything else will probably need to be upgraded.
>
> Well I'll also get a new screen and mouse, one that matches the colors
> :-)

Note also that beige is no longer available from some of the better case
manufacturers. You can only have black, silver or raw aluminium from
Chieftec and a few others these days.
- --
Regards

Dave [RLU#314465]
================================================== ====
dwnoon@spamtrap.ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
Remove spam trap to reply via e-mail.
================================================== ====

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J.O. Aho

Wim Cossement wrote:
> J.O. Aho wrote:

>> When it comes to the number of cores depends on how much larger you
>> want your
>> power bill to be. As we have working SMP in Linux, 2+ is ok.
>
> I don't have to pay it but it would be nice to have something that is
> capable of using less power when it's not needed.

There is the low power version of some of the AMD 64bit CPUs, Tomshardware
made a test and got to the conclusion that even if they do use less power in
idle mode than normal CPUs, they took longer time to perform the task, whihc
resulted in that in the long run, you didn't save much power or even used more
power by using those low power CPUs (of course it depends much on how high %
of idle time you have).

--

//Aho

Wim Cossement

AZ Nomad wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:56:32 +0100, Wim Cossement <a@b.c> wrote:
>
>
>> Hello Gentoo-ers,
>
>> After almost 6 years of labor my machine finally died! :-/
>> But I was able to do my thing on it as an IT'er and a big part of this I
>> have to thank to Gentoo so I'll run it as well on my new machine but I'm
>> not sure what to get yet, perhaps someone could help?
>
>> It would be a PC for sure but the biggest question is about the type of
>> CPU I'd be using.
>
>> AMD or Intel?
>> How many cores?
>> 32 or 64 bit?
>
>> I have about ¤ 1000 - 1200 to spend and I don't really need a GPU or a
>> screen if this might help a bit.
>
>> Could someone point out some pro's and con's (personal experiences?) and
>> a few possible candiates?
>
> You need to describe what you're going to do with it. Suggestions for somebody
> who only visits web pages and reads email are going to signiffigantly differ
> from somebody who does application development, runs 3D games or who does video
> editing.

Basic Gentoo stuff... :-)
Compiling and testing the updated packages and kernels, run a few
webapps, burn a DVD every now and then and read some E-mail.

Wimmy

Wim Cossement

J.O. Aho wrote:
> Wim Cossement wrote:
>> J.O. Aho wrote:
>
>>> When it comes to the number of cores depends on how much larger you
>>> want your
>>> power bill to be. As we have working SMP in Linux, 2+ is ok.
>> I don't have to pay it but it would be nice to have something that is
>> capable of using less power when it's not needed.
>
> There is the low power version of some of the AMD 64bit CPUs, Tomshardware
> made a test and got to the conclusion that even if they do use less power in
> idle mode than normal CPUs, they took longer time to perform the task, whihc
> resulted in that in the long run, you didn't save much power or even used more
> power by using those low power CPUs (of course it depends much on how high %
> of idle time you have).

Thats weird, guess they fucked it up then...
But I can be pretty idle at times you know! :-)

Wim Cossement

David W Noon wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Friday 23 Nov 2007 11:22 in article <fi6cpv$kee$1@snic.vub.ac.be> of
> alt.os.linux.gentoo, Wim Cossement(a@b.c) wrote:
>
>> David W Noon wrote:
> [snip]
>>> You decide on the "bittedness" of the kernel, glibc, etc., when you
>>> do the installation. You set the CHOST, CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS
>>> in /etc/make.conf and you specify the processor type in the kernel
>>> configuration: there are separate selections for AMD Hammer (Opteron,
>>> Athlon64, etc.) and Intel EM64T (Pentium D, Core2 Duo/Quad).
>> http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags
>
> You should take a hefty pinch of salt with some of the suggested
> settings in that Wiki page. It is intended for complete newbies.
>
> If you go with an Intel EM64T, I will post you mine here, before you
> install; just ask when you are ready. They are easily changed for AMD
> K8/Opteron/etc., processors.

Will do when the time is right!

> [snip]
>>> The /dev/hdb indicates a PATA (EIDE/ATAPI) connection for the drive,
>>> using the old PATA driver modules in the kernel. The newer libsata
>>> drivers configure these drives into the SCSI namespace
>>> as /dev/sr0, /dev/sr1, etc.
>>>
>>> If you are using a SATA interface as well as the PATA one then you
>>> have probably configured the kernel wrongly. This is one of the
>>> touchy areas of newer hardware under Linux.
>> The HD is SATA but the optical drives are PATA so I have to use both.
>> And I probably lost track a bit when the kernel started using
>> libata... Following the Gentoo SATA wiki now.
>
> You will likely need to use the libsata drivers for both your PATA and
> SATA interfaces. Mixing the older PATA drivers with SATA can cause all
> kinds of problems, especially with IRQ handling.

Now I understand how it works. I need AHCI SATA, Intel ICH SATA and
Jmicron PATA support and leave all other IDE stuff turned off.
And I had problems with that IRQ handling I suppose.

>>> Also, most new motherboards don't have many PATA connectors --
>>> typically only one. They have SATA connectors instead. Your old hard
>>> drives might need some fiddling with adaptor connectors to get them
>>> to work very, very slowly.
>> I'll try to get an SATA only system then.
>
> It depends what other peripherals you want to connect. If you want
> ATAPI-connected CD/DVD-ROM and/or CD-RW/DVD+RW/-RW/-RAM drive(s) then a
> PATA interface will be needed somewhere. But the typical modern mobo
> has 1 PATA and 6 SATA connectors.
>
>>> It looks to me that you are really faced with buying most of a new
>>> system. You can probably keep your keyboard, mouse and screen.
>>> Everything else will probably need to be upgraded.
>> Well I'll also get a new screen and mouse, one that matches the colors
>> :-)
>
> Note also that beige is no longer available from some of the better case
> manufacturers. You can only have black, silver or raw aluminium from
> Chieftec and a few others these days.

Black is an okay color for me. :-p

Wimmy

> - --
> Regards
>
> Dave [RLU#314465]
> ================================================== ====
> dwnoon@spamtrap.ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
> Remove spam trap to reply via e-mail.
> ================================================== ====
>
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> =dgsy
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AZ Nomad

On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:08:50 +0100, Wim Cossement <a@b.c> wrote:


>AZ Nomad wrote:
>> On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:56:32 +0100, Wim Cossement <a@b.c> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hello Gentoo-ers,
>>
>>> After almost 6 years of labor my machine finally died! :-/
>>> But I was able to do my thing on it as an IT'er and a big part of this I
>>> have to thank to Gentoo so I'll run it as well on my new machine but I'm
>>> not sure what to get yet, perhaps someone could help?
>>
>>> It would be a PC for sure but the biggest question is about the type of
>>> CPU I'd be using.
>>
>>> AMD or Intel?
>>> How many cores?
>>> 32 or 64 bit?
>>
>>> I have about ¤ 1000 - 1200 to spend and I don't really need a GPU or a
>>> screen if this might help a bit.
>>
>>> Could someone point out some pro's and con's (personal experiences?) and
>>> a few possible candiates?
>>
>> You need to describe what you're going to do with it. Suggestions for somebody
>> who only visits web pages and reads email are going to signiffigantly differ
>> from somebody who does application development, runs 3D games or who does video
>> editing.

>Basic Gentoo stuff... :-)
>Compiling and testing the updated packages and kernels, run a few
>webapps, burn a DVD every now and then and read some E-mail.

Pretty easy setup.
I think intel core 2 duo has the edge over amd although I still prefer amd.
motherboard -- get one with the I/O you want. Two gigabit ethernets?
s/pdif for surround sound? I prefer motherboards without chipset fans.
do a google search for the motherboard make/model and the magic word "linux"
to see if anybody is having problems. Asus has almost always worked well
for me although I've sometimes had to use patched drivers.

go with an nvidia motherboard chipset video or video card. nvidia is
proprietary, but it their drivers work extemely well.


cpu: don't get the cheapest. Sweetspot is typically around $150. Spend
any more and the performance/price ratio rapidly drops.

go with 2 gig of ram; maybe even 4 gig, ram is so cheap nowadays.

power supply: don't use the crap that is included with most cases. A
blowout on that $8 power supply can take out your whole system. Spend
$50-90 here.

Case: very personal choice. I like quiet cases.
I have no use for dorkage: crap fans with blinking lights, clear panels
on the case, etc.

cpu fan, case fans, power supply fans: I also like quiet here.

hard drive: 500G is <$90 nowadays. $750G is <170.
optical drive: some can write a label on the disk (on the edge?)
double layer blank media is still too expensive and may always be so.

J.O. Aho

Wim Cossement wrote:
> J.O. Aho wrote:
>> Wim Cossement wrote:
>>> J.O. Aho wrote:
>>
>>>> When it comes to the number of cores depends on how much larger you
>>>> want your
>>>> power bill to be. As we have working SMP in Linux, 2+ is ok.
>>> I don't have to pay it but it would be nice to have something that is
>>> capable of using less power when it's not needed.
>>
>> There is the low power version of some of the AMD 64bit CPUs,
>> Tomshardware
>> made a test and got to the conclusion that even if they do use less
>> power in
>> idle mode than normal CPUs, they took longer time to perform the task,
>> whihc
>> resulted in that in the long run, you didn't save much power or even
>> used more
>> power by using those low power CPUs (of course it depends much on how
>> high %
>> of idle time you have).
>
> Thats weird, guess they fucked it up then...
> But I can be pretty idle at times you know! :-)

I don't think they did fuck it up, it's just how physics works

If you have a slower CPU, it needs a longer time to use 100% CPU Power to
perform the encoding of a movie, than a fast CPU.

slow CPU: 1u - 10u
fast CPU: 3u - 20u

Say the encoding takes 10 minutes for the fast CPU while the slow it takes an
hour, for this pseudo-scientific we use units per minute

slow has 2 hours of rest and 1 hour of full work = 720u

fas has 2.83 hours of rest and 0.167 hour of full work = 710u

of course if it's 3 hours of complete idle time, then things looks different,
but it's seldom that you have a CPU that is idle all the time. It should only
be idealistic if the CPU has low loads a few times now and then, but when it's
pressed to use full power it starts to consume more as it has to work a lot
longer.


--

//Aho

Grant Edwards

On 2007-11-26, J.O. Aho <user@example.net> wrote:

>>> There is the low power version of some of the AMD 64bit CPUs,
>>> Tomshardware made a test and got to the conclusion that even
>>> if they do use less power in idle mode than normal CPUs, they
>>> took longer time to perform the task, whihc resulted in that
>>> in the long run, you didn't save much power or even used more
>>> power by using those low power CPUs (of course it depends much
>>> on how high % of idle time you have).
>>
>> Thats weird, guess they fucked it up then...
>> But I can be pretty idle at times you know! :-)
>
> I don't think they did fuck it up, it's just how physics works
>
> If you have a slower CPU,

They weren't supposed to be slower, they were just supposed to
be lower power. The Silicon-dioxide gate insulation layer on
the transistors in CPUs had gotten so thin (about 5 atoms
think, IIRC), that the with of position probability curve for
electrons was allowing a lot of them to tunnel through the gate
insulation into the channel. This caused a lot of gate leakage
current (which wastes power). By switching to a thicker layer
of a different (rather exotic) gate insulation material, gate
leakage current could be reduced without lowering the switching
speed of the transistor. This results in lower power
consumption for the speed.

> it needs a longer time to use 100% CPU Power to perform the
> encoding of a movie, than a fast CPU.
>
> slow CPU: 1u - 10u
> fast CPU: 3u - 20u
>
> Say the encoding takes 10 minutes for the fast CPU while the
> slow

You seem to be conflating speed with power. The two are
related, but the new AMD CPUs were supposed to be lower power
_at_the_same_speed_. The newer processors where supposed to be
much more efficient _at_full_speed_ not just at idle. The
power consumption under full load of the low power X2 3800+ is
less than 35W. That's less that half the power of the higher
leakage parts running at a similar speed.

I've got a slightly faster "low-power" X2 and I measured the
peak power consumption at full load (both cores running at
100%) at just over 40W. That's _way_ lower than previous
dual-core processors running at the same speed.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Didn't I buy a 1951
at Packard from you last March
visi.com in Cairo?

Daniel James

In article
news:<slrnfkluma.q2l.aznomad.2@ip70-176-155-130.ph.ph.cox.net>, AZ Nomad
wrote:
> I think intel core 2 duo has the edge over amd although I still prefer
> amd.

I agree.

At the low end of the range the AMD chips are cheaper and use less energy
for the same power (i.e. work done). Toward the high end the AMD chips
become quite energy-hungry (the 6000+, for example) and at the very top
you can't beat the Core2 chips.

The core 2 quad Q6600 is a bargain if you want four cores, the 4-core AMD
parts are only just beginning to appear and I haven't seen a review yet.

> motherboard -- get one with the I/O you want.

IMHO there are very few good motherboards out there at the moment. For
one thing the motherboard makers have been too quick to drop support for
legacy devices, and for another I like to use ECC RAM and support for
that is rare on anything but server (Xeon/Opteron) boards.

I am very fond of the Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard, in which I run
energy-efficient versions of AMD X2 chips. The M2NPV-VM is a uATX board
with the nVidia nForce 430 chipset and integrated GeForce 6150 video (I
don't do games, so that's fine). It has:

* 4 SATA drive connections -- but still has two PATA channels (4 drives)
unlike most current boards, and a floppy connector.

* 2 firewire and 8 USB 2.0 ports -- but still has one parallel and two
RS-232 serial ports (though the serial ports are only provided as headers
on the motherboard and the brackets to bring those to D9 connectors are
hard to find)

* gigabit ethernet

* Support for two monitors (VGA and RGB or TV (HDTV)) from onboard
graphics -- but also has PCIe x16 slot for beefier graphics card if
required.

* 5.1 channel sound (S/PDIF)

* support for ECC RAM (up to 4GB with a 32-bit OS, 8GB with 64-bit).

Best of all -- it's one of the cheaper boards around (despite being from
a reputable manufacturer).

I have not found an intel S775 board that has this rich support for both
new and legacy peripherals ... and the nicest S775 boards I know of at
present cost between two and three times as much.

> power supply: don't use the crap that is included with most cases. A
> blowout on that $8 power supply can take out your whole system. Spend
> $50-90 here.

I'll add a rider to that -- spend those dollars on a good quality PSU
rather than a lower-quality unit that claims a higher power output. Work
out roughly how much poser your system will actually use, add 10-20% as a
margin for error, and buy the best PSU you can that exceeds that power by
as little as possible.

My Athlon64 4200+ system in the M2NPV-VM (with integrated graphics --
faster GPUs eat energy) idles at less than 100W (as measured by my UPS)
and probably uses less than 200W maximum. My 430W PSU is huge overkill!
(but I got it cheap)

> Case: very personal choice. I like quiet cases.
> I have no use for dorkage: crap fans with blinking lights, clear
> panels on the case, etc.

I wholeheartedly agree. The Antec Solo is a nice case -- not expensive,
no dorkage, USB and firewire on the front, very quiet.

> hard drive: 500G is <$90 nowadays. $750G is <170.

Yes, around 500G is the sweet spot at the moment (about £50 here in the
UK).

> optical drive: some can write a label on the disk (on the edge?)

There are two systems -- HP's "LightScribe" and Yamaha's "LabelFlash" --
probably more. The label/picture is written in a dye layer on the *back*
of the DVD, so it covers the whole disk surface. There are some pictures
here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe
http://labelflash.jp/

The label-burning process can apparently be very slow, I've not tried it.
Both systems need special drives which cost a pound or two more than
normal ones, and require special disks with the dye layer. It may be
useful for burning promotional demo disks but for labelling backups a
fibre-tip marker is quicker, cheaper, and less fuss.

AFAICT LightScribe is somewhat supported under linux, but LabelFlash is
not.

http://www.linux.com/feature/118705 may be of interest?

> double layer blank media is still too expensive and may always be so.

Yes, DL disks are still several times the price of single-layer ... but
they're only around 40p to £1 (a dollar or two) so if you actually need
to put 9GB of data onto one disk (say, you want to run an unattended
backup that will fit a DL disk but not SL) the cost isn't prohibitive.

It's hard to find a DVD writer that doesn't support DL these days, so the
point is moot.

Cheers,
Daniel.