Building a Linux Box
arnuld
I am building a Linux Box. After reading ESR's ULB article:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/ultimate-linux-box/ulb2001.html I have
dropped the idea of quad-core processor.
Rather than hat most people do, instead of Intel I am going after 64 bit
AMD Athlon dual or Phenom triple core system, both are much cheaper than
quad-core. I have used AMD Athlon 64 on ASUS's K8V-MX motherboard for 2
years and it was excellent (except for using gnash).
GOAL: i) To use Arch Linux as machine's native OS
ii) play movies or songs
iii) NO Video Games
iv) GNU Hurd as 2nd OS
v) using Flash-Drives from Kingston, Transient or i-ball
vi) connecting my friend's digital cameras for getting/sending
pictures
thats it.
Here is what my idea is like:
1) AMD Athlon X2 (or Phenom X3)
2) ASUS Motherboard
3) 22 inches LG LCD W2242S or W2252TE
http://www.in.lge.com/Product/Products-List.aspx?id=171&cat=IT%20Products&subcat=LCD
4) 2 360 GB SATA Hard-Drives (one for back-up)
5) 1 SONY DVD-RW, 1 DVD-ROM (DVD-ROM is here for I will do all
reading work in it. It will be used like hell.
6) 2 x 2GB RAM (1000 MHz)
7) Numeric UPS
8) Logitech Mouse + keyboard (my favorite)
9) 2 extra pair of fans for extra cooling
What you people suggest. I am in Hyderbad, India, so will not have much
choices in motherboard except of ASUS, Gigabyte or MSI. As per ESR's ULB
FSB is more important which actually belongs to motherboard itself, so I
will see which model of ASUS is good on that.
- what about video card: ATI Radeom or Nvidia . Do I need them ?
- What about ASUS's on-baord audio/video support in Linux ?
- you have better recommendation for flash-drive ?
- Anything else ?
Thanks in Advance :)
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Maxwell Lol
> - what about video card: ATI Radeom or Nvidia . Do I need them ?
You will need something if you use a GUI. One of the problems with
Nvidia is that the open source driver is limited, and you have to use
the proprietary Nvidia driver if you want to use the fancy GUIs with
rotating screens, etc.
JamesG
If you pick a motherboard that has integrated graphics then you will
probably be alright without buying a graphics card assuming that you
are not interested in a lot of the fancy special effects that are
available from things like Compiz. I have run Gnome with integrated
graphics and it was fine for the standard stuff. This also assumes
that you really are not interested in any games that require a
graphics card to perform adequately. I somewhat feel that if you
don't need a separate graphics card then putting one in is just
another thing that can have trouble.
I have used a Gigabyte motherboard, an old Asus Amazon motherboard,
and an old Asrock motherboard with Ubuntu Linux and have not had any
problems with them.
It looks like a pretty nice setup to me.
Good Luck,
James
google01103
Nvidia makes pretty good integrated graphics - I ran Compiz with the 6100 igp in my Biostar board no problem. Only things with igp chips are they tend to be availabl only in mAtx boards which can be limiting in ram slots, pci slots and drive controllers, but I found my board had plenty for my purposes just make sure you have a pci-e slot in case you decide to add a graphics card later. Personally I would get an mATX again as long as there were 4 memory slots, a pci-e slot and it was overclockable (not gonna oc as much as the high end boards but reasonably well) and tend to cost less.
You could also look at boards with ATI igp's as their driver are now open (I believe) so that you shouldn't have to recompile them like I do for Nvidia.
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Mark Hobley
> Nvidia makes pretty good integrated graphics
... but they do not work with open source drivers. If your are shopping
for a motherboard, choose Intel for integrated graphics.
I recently saw Intel graphics in action on open source Debian, and I was
very impressed.
> You could also look at boards with ATI igp's as their driver are now open
(I believe) so that you shouldn't have to recompile them like I do for Nvidia.
They are not fully open, however there are third party open sources drivers
in development, and on the ATI website they state that "actively assist
developers in the open source community".
http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html#4
Regards,
Mark.
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Mark Hobley
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s. keeling
True, but a regular user who doesn't do 3D/Compiz will be fine with
the generic nv driver. nv's only limited if you're demanding bleeding
edge graphics performance.
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arnuld
> You will need something if you use a GUI. One of the problems with
> Nvidia is that the open source driver is limited, and you have to use
> the proprietary Nvidia driver if you want to use the fancy GUIs with
> rotating screens, etc.
1st, I am going to covert some DVD to Theora or x264 format using ffmpeg
etc. Nothing else in audio except this. I use creative 2.1 speakers or a
headphone. No special home sound system, I am not interested in it.
2nd, I thought buying an extra audio and video card will not put extra
load on the motherboard and will help the motherboard from extra wear and
tear.
I don't runCompiz, heck I don't even use GNOME. I use wmii or at max fvwm.
and 3rd, I have a big [b]NO[/b] to games
So Do I need an audio or video cards
Andrew Halliwell
> On Nov 26, 6:48 am, Maxwell Lol <nos...@com.invalid> wrote:
>> arnuld <sunr...@invalid.address> writes:
>> > - what about video card: ATI Radeom or Nvidia . Do I need them ?
>>
>> You will need something if you use a GUI. One of the problems with
>> Nvidia is that the open source driver is limited, and you have to use
>> the proprietary Nvidia driver if you want to use the fancy GUIs with
>> rotating screens, etc.
>
> If you pick a motherboard that has integrated graphics then you will
> probably be alright without buying a graphics card assuming that you
> are not interested in a lot of the fancy special effects that are
> available from things like Compiz. I have run Gnome with integrated
> graphics and it was fine for the standard stuff.
The integrated graphics on this machine here is intel chipset based.
And it performs very well with compiz stuff, cube included.
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aspir8or
toothpicks and wrote:
No.
I have onboard graphics and 7.1ch audio and they were quite adequate for
everything except games and large format graphics manipulation. I ended up
installing a 8800gtx after I updated my camera to Nikon D40 and the
onboard Intel video left me time to have to shave twice while adding a
gaussian blur to one photo. I use the proprietary Nvidia drivers with no
problems (Ubuntu 8.10). I've played around with compiz, but I haven't
found anything there that improves usability or production, so I removed
it. Some of the effects are nice, but not necessary.
If you don't intend to put huge loads through your onboard video, which it
doesn't look like you do, then you should be fine. I would still get a
board with a PCI-E slot though, as your requirements may change and it's
cheaper to buy a new graphics card than both card and motherboard.
As far as the sound goes, I have all my music on this box and output to my
home theatre setup with no problems or lack of quality (at least to my
thoroughly used ears, {ex bass player })
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Darren Salt
[snip]
> I have onboard graphics and 7.1ch audio and they were quite adequate for
> everything except games and large format graphics manipulation. I ended up
> installing a 8800gtx after I updated my camera to Nikon D40 and the onboard
> Intel video left me time to have to shave twice while adding a gaussian
> blur to one photo.
Er... exactly what does a CPU-intensive task have to do with the graphics
hardware?
[snip]
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The Natural Philosopher
> I demand that aspir8or may or may not have written...
>
> [snip]
>> I have onboard graphics and 7.1ch audio and they were quite adequate for
>> everything except games and large format graphics manipulation. I ended up
>> installing a 8800gtx after I updated my camera to Nikon D40 and the onboard
>> Intel video left me time to have to shave twice while adding a gaussian
>> blur to one photo.
>
> Er... exactly what does a CPU-intensive task have to do with the graphics
> hardware?
>
> [snip]
arnuld
> The graphics hardware coprcesor can release a bit of CPU?
Aye.. I think a graphics card helps only in saving system RAM. Right ?
Cork Soaker
>> On Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:25:36 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> The graphics hardware coprcesor can release a bit of CPU?
>
> Aye.. I think a graphics card helps only in saving system RAM. Right ?
>
>
>
>
Wrong.
Cork Soaker
The Natural Philosopher
>> On Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:25:36 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> The graphics hardware coprcesor can release a bit of CPU?
>
> Aye.. I think a graphics card helps only in saving system RAM. Right ?
>
>
>
>
If you can pass complex instructions to the card and have it do them,
instead of doing it yourself and simply stuffing pixels in RAM, it helps
a lot.
It's called hardware acceleration. The cards will accept things like
'draw a block of color, this size' or 'move this piece of screen to
there'. I haven't a clue where a modern card is at, but I was there when
the first graphics coprocessor cards came out..and half the time they
were useless because the software only could say 'do it pixel by pixel'
In the OP's case though, of processing pictures, I am fairly sure most
of that would have to be done in main memory and with the main CPUS.
arnuld
>> arnuld wrote:
>> Aye.. I think a graphics card helps only in saving system RAM. Right ?
> Wrong.
Well, they have their own RAM and a fan. I never used any gfx (graphics
card in short). You know what exactly they are helpful for ?
arnuld
> In the OP's case though, of processing pictures, I am fairly sure most
> of that would have to be done in main memory and with the main CPUS.
On my AMD Athlon 64 2800+ machine with 1 GB of 600 MHz RAM and on-board
video and audio, it takes around 1 hour to encode/decode an entire movie.
I think its slow.
Thats the one reason I am buying a new Dual-Core Athlon X2, 2nd reason is
I want to buy an LCD, the CRT I have gives much more strain on the eyes.
Harold Stevens
[Snip...]
> You know what exactly they are helpful for ?
Corky gives useless one-word "replies" (IOW, trolls). WHBT; WKWTD...
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