[gentoo-user] Best and most gentoo-compatible PC

[gentoo-user] Best and most gentoo-compatible PC

[iprmaster]

Hi everybody,

I am going to buy a new desktop PC and, because of some reasons I cannot 
explain here in details, I have to choose among these configurations 
(ordered by increasing price ;-) ):

1. FSC ESPRIMO P5625 E80+ uBTX: MCP78B Chipset AMD Phenom X3 8450 (2,1 
GHz) TripleCore(1,5MBSLC), 4*1024 MB DDR2 800, NVIDIA Geforce 9500 512MB 
Dual DVI, SATA II 250 GB 7.2k, DVD RW SML. Price: 650 a.u. (arbitrary units)

2. Dell Precision Workstation T 3400: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8200 
(2.66GHz, 4MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)375W,4GB (4 x 1024MB) 800 MHz ECC 
DDR2-SDRAM Memory, HD 250 GB SATA2 7.200,16x DVD+/-RW
Dual 256MB nVidia Quadro FX 570. Price: 950 a.u.

3. FSC Celsius W370: Core 2 Quad Q9400 4*2.66 GHz, 2 x 2GB DDR2 800, 
NVIDIA Quadro FS 370 256 MB, 2xSATA II 500 GB 7.2k, DVD RW SML. Price: 
900 a.u.

4. Dell Precision Workstation T-5400: Single Quad Core Xeon 5410 
(2,33GHz, 1333, 2x6MB), Intel 5000XChipset, 4GB (4 x 1024MB) Quad 
Channel FBD 667Mhz Memory,250GB SATA Festplatte 7.2k, 16x DVD+/-RW, 512 
MB nVidia quadro FX1700(MRGA14L). Price: 1400 a.u.


About my needs: I am a C-developer, have to compile/run/debug programs 
several tenths of time a day and analyse postprocessed, two-, three- and 
four-dimensional (space+time) results on the same PC. All under Gentoo, 
of course ;-) HD size is not a problem, there is a big NFS-Volume I can 
mount ;-)

These are my questions:

- is the most expensive PC (4.) worth to be considered? Does its 
speed-up justify its price?

- is there any compatibility problem with any of these configurations 
and Gentoo? I do not want to run any other distribution! As far as I 
know, nVidia and 2D acceleration issues should be solved by now...

- additional ideas/comments are welcome, but on these configurations 
only ;-).

Thanks
Max

Re: [gentoo-user] Best and most gentoo-compatible PC

[Robert Bridge]

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On Thu, 8 Jan 2009 08:33:27 +0100
iprmaster <iprmaster@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everybody,
> 
> I am going to buy a new desktop PC and, because of some reasons I
> cannot explain here in details, I have to choose among these
> configurations (ordered by increasing price ;-) ):
> 
> 1. FSC ESPRIMO P5625 E80+ uBTX: MCP78B Chipset AMD Phenom X3 8450
> (2,1 GHz) TripleCore(1,5MBSLC), 4*1024 MB DDR2 800, NVIDIA Geforce
> 9500 512MB Dual DVI, SATA II 250 GB 7.2k, DVD RW SML. Price: 650 a.u.
> (arbitrary units)
> 
> 2. Dell Precision Workstation T 3400: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
> E8200 (2.66GHz, 4MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)375W,4GB (4 x 1024MB) 800 MHz
> ECC DDR2-SDRAM Memory, HD 250 GB SATA2 7.200,16x DVD+/-RW
> Dual 256MB nVidia Quadro FX 570. Price: 950 a.u.
> 
> 3. FSC Celsius W370: Core 2 Quad Q9400 4*2.66 GHz, 2 x 2GB DDR2 800, 
> NVIDIA Quadro FS 370 256 MB, 2xSATA II 500 GB 7.2k, DVD RW SML.
> Price: 900 a.u.
> 
> 4. Dell Precision Workstation T-5400: Single Quad Core Xeon 5410 
> (2,33GHz, 1333, 2x6MB), Intel 5000XChipset, 4GB (4 x 1024MB) Quad 
> Channel FBD 667Mhz Memory,250GB SATA Festplatte 7.2k, 16x DVD+/-RW,
> 512 MB nVidia quadro FX1700(MRGA14L). Price: 1400 a.u.
> 
> 
> About my needs: I am a C-developer, have to compile/run/debug
> programs several tenths of time a day and analyse postprocessed,
> two-, three- and four-dimensional (space+time) results on the same
> PC. All under Gentoo, of course ;-) HD size is not a problem, there
> is a big NFS-Volume I can mount ;-)
> 
> These are my questions:
> 
> - is the most expensive PC (4.) worth to be considered? Does its 
> speed-up justify its price?
> 
> - is there any compatibility problem with any of these configurations 
> and Gentoo? I do not want to run any other distribution! As far as I 
> know, nVidia and 2D acceleration issues should be solved by now...
> 
> - additional ideas/comments are welcome, but on these configurations 
> only ;-).

Can you get Dell to spec a RHEL Precision workstation? Some of the
Precisions do have RHEL variants, which pretty much guarantees Linux
compatability.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Best and most gentoo-compatible PC

[Pariksheet Nanda]

Hi Max,

I'll say a few things about the T3400 and nVidia graphics support
since that's what I have personal experience with-

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 2:33 AM, iprmaster <iprmaster@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2. Dell Precision Workstation T 3400: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8200
> (2.66GHz, 4MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)375W,4GB (4 x 1024MB) 800 MHz ECC
> DDR2-SDRAM Memory, HD 250 GB SATA2 7.200,16x DVD+/-RW
> Dual 256MB nVidia Quadro FX 570. Price: 950 a.u.

My company bundles our systems with the T3400, mostly because we have
found the motherboard to be very robust.
It can handle the high data bandwidth requirement of our PCI cards,
and has stable enough voltages.

Having run SystemRescueCD a few times, it was able to work with the
hardware without issue including being able to mount the Intel ICH9
BIOS softRAID.
I admit I haven't tried to do a thorough compatibility test though.


> About my needs: I am a C-developer, have to compile/run/debug programs
> several tenths of time a day and analyse postprocessed, two-, three- and
> four-dimensional (space+time) results on the same PC. All under Gentoo,
> of course ;-) HD size is not a problem, there is a big NFS-Volume I can
> mount ;-)

The only trouble we've face with the T3400 is quite a few of our
RAID-0 drives have crashed in the 4 years our company has sold them
(well the T3400 and its predecessor).
I can't believe it's all due to the HDD model and/or our system
thrashing the drive: it could be an issue with the Intel BIOS RAID, so
you may want to stay away from that.

Since HDD speed is usually the bottle neck of system performance you
may want to set it up with ZFS (maybe in RAID-Z?)
Additionally the combination of ZFS and the ECC RAM should guard you
well against data corruption.


> About my needs: I am a C-developer, have to compile/run/debug programs
> several tenths of time a day and analyse postprocessed, two-, three- and
> four-dimensional (space+time) results on the same PC. All under Gentoo,
> of course ;-)
---snip----
> These are my questions:
>
> - is the most expensive PC (4.) worth to be considered? Does its
> speed-up justify its price?

Maybe the -list can contribute the difference of:
qlop -tH <pkgname>
Between the C2D and Xeon to help you decide?


> - is there any compatibility problem with any of these configurations
> and Gentoo? I do not want to run any other distribution! As far as I
> know, nVidia and 2D acceleration issues should be solved by now...

I have a very similar Quatro card on my home desktop.
I had two nVidia related driver crashes of xorg-server 9 months ago,
but that was resolved in a driver update and I have had no issues
since.


> - additional ideas/comments are welcome, but on these configurations
> only ;-).

* Pariksheet points at ZFS idea ;)


> Thanks
> Max

Pariksheet