Design My PC

[mortagen]

Hey,

I'm building a box to throw some breed (distro) of linux on... not sure what yet. I know i want to run KDE4 and Compiz to show up my vista aero friends... i'm just wondering what is appropriate hardware for running the best of the special effects at 1280x1024...

I know i will be better off with a Nvidia card because they have better linux driver support. I know i also want dualcore for a smoother and more responsive experience (i multitask alot). I'm just wondering if u guys could point me in the right direction for eg. Nvidia cards good for the special effects etc. at 1280x1024, a good dual core for linux, and whatever other hardware you guys recommend.

Thanks alot!

Regards, Mortagen

[techieMoe]

You really don't have to do much shopping these days. Standard hardware will do you just fine with a modern Linux distribution. Either an AMD or an Intel dual-core chip will perform just fine, and any relatively new (8000 series) Nvidia card will do you well. Even some of the older 6000 and 7000 series Nvidia cards have enough power in them for 3D desktop effects. Heck, some people get 3D desktop effects with just integrated Intel graphics chips.

I'd recommend 2GB minimum of RAM, but if you want to go with 4GB or more you can. The problem with more than 3GB of RAM is that you'll be forced to install a 64-bit version of Linux (or MS Windows) in order to use all of it. Just FYI.

Stay away from RAID for your harddrives. It's a geeky cool feature but functionally useless for a desktop machine in my opinion. It will just give you grief in Linux.

[bigtomrodney]

I agree with Moe, the only RAID worth having is hardware RAID. I can guarantee you no matter what your consumer board says it does not have hardware RAID

I have a Q6600 processor from Intel. They are coming down in price and I can tell you life is a dream with them. I have never had it so much as stutter under heavy load.

[Freston]

I have one of them Intel integrated video cards, and it runs 3D desktop just fine...

... it reaches it's maximum capacity though if you play a game that is also 3D. It's one or the other.

[drl]

Hi.

See How to build the 2007.12.03 standard workstation for an interesting take on build-it-yourself.

Software RAID-1 (mdadm) has worked well for me -- one array (small SCSI) since 2003; yes, primarily on servers, although the line between servers and desktops is blurry with *nix boxes. I like software RAID because it helps one through transitions. In one instance I was able to create an array with partitions from two SATA drives and an IDE drive. That's unlikely to be addressed with hardware RAID. Horror stories can be found on both sides of that discussion. A friend is in his 6th week of attempted recovery from an Adaptec IDE RAID problem (RAID-5) -- the card was apparently so much trouble that Adaptec seems to have wiped it from their corporate memory -- he's running a program that is intended to look through the drives in the array for re-assembly, 24 X 7 for 6 weeks. Every month the RAID on Debian re-syncs the disks in an array; it took about 30 minutes for me the last time (a smallish virtual machine host).

At any rate, best wishes with your project -- savor the anticipation ... cheers, drl

[mortagen]

In response to CPU suggestions: I don't like the Intel Quad Core concept... it's just **** compared to the phenom concept... at least it's true quad core and the four cores can talk to each other. I might just go quad core or dual single core. Would there be much advantage with quad core over dual core in just the operating system alone? Is there much difference in the responsiveness and smoothness when multitasking on a high end single core compared to a multi core? eg. Pentium M 2.26 (over 4ghz in P4 clock).

In response to RAID suggestions: I definitely won't go near raid, not for a while anyways until i understand linux better. Then i'll probably setup some scsi drives in raid 0... oh so fast! I'll show up my vista friends big time!

In response to RAM suggestions: Why 2gb minimum? that is rather alot... i know it's not true minimum, but to suggest that much, reminds me of vista! And why would i need 64-bit for more than 3gb of ram? does 32-bit linux handle memory differently to windows? because 32-bit windows handles up to 4gb ram (2gb for applications and 2gb for the system kernel itself).

In response to GPU suggestions: This again reminds me of Vista... i like the fact u said intel integrated can do the job, but i have seen those effects and i doubt it is going to go well at 1280x1024 (possible higher...) And to suggest an 8000 card... or even 7 or 6 series is still rather daunting... Has linux really become this hungry? One of the good things about linux is all the people submitting code, it means it gets tweaked far more than windows for example meaning it will make the most out of the hardware available... well i like to think it should anyways...

Thanks for the responses! sorry to be picky, i'm just very critical of these things.

Regards, Mortagen

[MikeTbob]

The problem with more than 3GB of RAM is that you'll be forced to install a 64-bit version of Linux (or MS Windows) in order to use all of it. Just FYI.

I Learn something new Everyday, Thanks for the heads up techieMoe.

[B]
In response to RAM suggestions: Why 2gb minimum? that is rather alot... i know it's not true minimum, but to suggest that much, reminds me of vista!

In response to GPU suggestions: This again reminds me of Vista... i like the fact u said intel integrated can do the job, but i have seen those effects and i doubt it is going to go well at 1280x1024 (possible higher...) And to suggest an 8000 card... or even 7 or 6 series is still rather daunting... Has linux really become this hungry? One of the good things about linux is all the people submitting code, it means it gets tweaked far more than windows for example meaning it will make the most out of the hardware available... well i like to think it should anyways...

Thanks for the responses! sorry to be picky, i'm just very critical of these things.

Regards, Mortagen

I think what techieMoe was trying to suggest is just based on your post, you want to Impress your Vista friends and well a Linux Distro with 2GB RAM will really perform over the top. You can use Linux with much less RAM, I currently only have 256MB RAM, Compiz lags a bit, but it does work.

The same goes for the GPU, I only use an Nvidia 5200 w/256 RAM. I think techieMoe was just thinking that if you want to really Impress those Vista chumps, then this is the way to do it. You won't have to upgrade for a long time I can promise you that.

[mortagen]

Hey,

Ok thanks, i didn't know you guys were talking about enthusiast hardware, thanks!

Ok i'll design some stuff, come back and let you guys evaluate it.

Thanks!

Regards, Mortagen

[darkrose0510]

Something that really annoyed a friend of mine:
Linux on a Pentium MMX 133Mhz with 32MB RAM - boots in 15 seconds
Vista on an Intel Quad Core 2.4GHz with 4GB or RAM - boots in 25 seconds

I really don't think you need top end hardware for *nix to show vista up.

[Freston]

The good thing about Linux is that you can choose how much of it you want enabled by default. Most distro's do this for you, although you can change it of course.

Everything a machine is capable of doing 'on the fly' takes up resources. You can think of this as hungry, but you could also say these systems take full advantage of the high end hardware that is available these days. What is the difference?? The difference is that in Linux running resource hungry distributions are a result of a choice on the end-user side of the table.



If you want a leaner OS, then you can do with a lot less impressive hardware.
I for one still think 1GB RAM is well enough. You'll notice however that Linux scales itself to make proper use of RAM available. When I run my 512MB machine it eventually fills up all available RAM. When I run my 1GB machine it does the same (only slower). I'll bet if you'd run the same setup on a 256MB machine it would also do the same.


What you need to impress your Vista friends is nothing more than a ~1.5Ghz, 512MB RAM, 20GB HD, Intel Integrated Graphics and a good monitor. I'm a multitasker myself. And I can work perfectly well on those specs. But it'll be a bit slow if you take the really modern distro's that are filled to the brim with impressive features, eye candy and functionality. There are however distro's out there that are tuned towards giving good (very good) performance on moderate and sub-par hardware. And yes, they can ship with Compiz as well.

It's up to you really. There are towers shipping for $179,- and laptops in the range of $200,- to $280,-... that is just as impressive. OK, their specs are laughable from a Vista point of view, but machines like that can also run perfectly smooth.

So there is no real clear cut answer to what you should buy. If you want the latest and greatest, I'm sure a recent Nvidia, a high end CPU and >1GB RAM can be put to good use.