[Discuss] I need a recommendation for a Linux-compatible high-end PC builder
Daniel AJ Sokolov
listclient at sokolov.eu.org
Mon Jan 8 21:19:08 PST 2018
Hello,
I would suggest taking a look at Dell's PowerEdge Tower servers. I
recently bought the T30 with a Xeon-CPU for my home office, and it is
surprisingly quiet.
So far, I am using the onboard graphics chip for a dual monitor setup,
but you can add a graphic's card as long as it does not draw more than
25W. But you said you wanted to minimize power consumption, so there you
go. :-)
A T130 would probably provide more power for your PCI-X-cards, I haven't
checked.
Assuming you already have a SATA DVD-RW-Drive, you can get a T130 with
16 GB RAM, an Intel Xeon E3-1270 v6 3.8GHz, 8M cache, 4C/8T, turbo
(72W), and two 1 TB hard drives for a nice RAID for about CAD 1500
(don't forget ebates.ca) plus you'll get a CAD 50 discount card for
another Dell order.
If you're interested in Dell, please let me know, maybe I have a way for
a further discount. I'd have to check.
BR
Daniel AJ
On 2018-01-08 05:54 PM, Alan W. Irwin wrote:
> Our current principal PC is low end by today's standards, i.e., it has
> a 2.4GHz clock rate and only two real cpu cores. However, a much
> larger concern with this system is its age which is a decade old. It's
> a tribute to ASUS motherboard quality back then that the capacitors
> and connectors on this MB are still doing well, but there are limits.
> Therefore, I would not be surprised if I have a sudden need for a new
> system at any time. However, I have been saying that for the last 7
> years! So a more important concern is that system is rather low end
> for my current needs. So in anticipation that I will buy a PC
> sometime this year I am looking for a Linux-compatible high-end ($1500
> price range) PC builder with a good reputation. So your comments
> on that would be much appreciated (other than "build it myself" since
> I really don't have that skill set).
>
> Our current system was built by The Edge which was managed by Matt
> Speller at that time. The box he came up with obviously worked out
> very well for our Linux-only needs so I would ask him to build me a
> box again in a heartbeat, but when I checked with The Edge several
> years ago he was no longer with that company. Does anybody here know
> whether Matt is still in town and still involved with box builds?
>
> Alternatively, can someone give me a recommendation pro or con for a
> Linux-aware local (preferred) or North-American (e.g., zareason if
> you have used them recently) Linux box builder?
>
> My high-end PC needs are as follows:
>
> * Must be completely Linux compatible. I would be willing to pay a
> small premium if Debian was installed on the box since that
> immediately proves its Linux compatibility, but if it is cheaper to
> have the box sold without an OS, then I can install my favorite
> distro, Debian, for myself so long as I can get free replacement
> components if one of those proves not to be Linux compatible.
>
> * The box should be green, i.e., not require excessive power
> consumption. This makes sense just based on the requirement below
> that the box must be quiet, because less power consumption means less
> temperature dissipation required means less fan noise. Also, we want to
> obtain instant access to our computers at any time, and I also have
> heavy build jobs I schedule each night so we always run our Linux
> boxes 24/7. Given those always-on needs
>
> 1 watt * 1 KW/1000 watts * 24 hours/day * 365.25 days/year * 0.13
> dollars/KW-hour
> = $1.14/year
>
> Thus, if the box I buy requires 200 watts less than another with
> similar characteristics other than power consumption, that saves me
> ~$230 per year which is a small but still significant fraction of
> the typical ~$1500 cost of a high-end box.
>
> * The box must be extremely quiet because it will be located in a
> small home office environment with two of us typically wanting to
> use that office without a lot of background fan noise to bug us.
>
> * The box should have lots of memory (e.g., 64GB). Barbara and I
> share the computer (simultaneously running two independent Linux
> desktops on it with direct access for one of us and thin-client
> access for the other). So that configuration takes extra memory.
> Furthermore, the Linux kernel takes advantage of all extra memory to
> reduce latency, Linux applications keep expanding their memory
> needs, and if the box lasts for 10 years I don't want to have to
> replace it prematurely because the memory is inadequate.
>
> * The box will likely have AMD cpu's/chipset/graphics. See comments
> below about multiple core support and graphics, but I have been
> recently been reading some articles concerning Linux kernel
> developers' anger at Intel's "Meltdown" and "Spectre" current design
> flaws. The jury is still out on whether AMD has similar design
> flaws. Their initial evaluation was "no" for Meltdown and "yes" for
> Spectre, but now there is some question about whether they are also
> have the Meltdown flaw. So the race is on between the two companies
> concerning how soon they can produce chips that are completely free
> of Meltdown and Spectre design flaws. And I will likely buy the one
> that wins that race subject to the multiple core support and
> graphics issues where AMD appears to be winning right now.
>
> * The box should have a big improvement in parallel power over my
> present system (e.g., 8-10 cores would be really nice). The reason
> for this need is I spend most of my computer time these days
> re-building and re-testing software after some development tweak I
> do, and
> those needs can take perfect advantage of parallel cpu's through GNU
> make's parallel build capability. Many low-power cores (as opposed
> to a few high-power ones) would be an ideal design for my parallel
> build but low noise and low power consumption needs. Finally, I
> looked at
> the zareason site to see what they supplied, and their best AMD
> desktop system could be expanded from 4 cores to 8 for an additional
> cost of $300 or $75 per core, but a similar test of their best Intel
> system showed the additional cost (in that case from 6 cores to 8
> cores) was $1200 or $600 (!) per additional core. Note that core
> clock rate is only a rough guide to core quality, but for what it is
> worth the AMD core clock rate was 3.0GHz while the Intel core clock
> rate was "3.4-3.6GHz" (whatever that exactly means).
>
> * The box should have reliable 3D graphics that have good open-source
> support. I am not too happy with Intel integrated graphics these
> days because their support for our old Intel graphics chip has
> started to become problematic, i.e., I can now reliably crash the
> Intel X server by simply trying to halve the size of an image with
> the ImageMagick display application. And that never used to be a
> problem for this hardware and older versions of the Intel X driver.
>
> I can completely understand the commercial motivations of the
> relatively large set of Linux graphics developers paid by Intel to
> support *new* Intel graphics on Linux. But their official test
> environment typically does not include old Intel graphics hardware
> (they quit testing on my current g33 intel graphics about ~5 years
> ago) so former abilities are inadvertently lost (as above) because
> they don't have good access to old graphics hardware to confirm bugs
> and fix them. Therefore, assuming my next box also lasts 10 years, I
> don't want to have to prematurely throw it out because some graphics
> company is not using due care in supplying old graphics chips for
> testing and debugging purposes.
>
> The alternatives to Intel open-source graphics are Nouveau (to drive
> NVidia graphics), and the AMD/ATI open-source X driver (to drive
> AMD/ATI graphics). Both of those open-source software projects have
> been excellent at supporting old graphics hardware according to
> phoronix articles. In fact, AMD refers users who are still using
> old AMD/ATI chips to the open-source driver they support. Also, I
> have been impressed with the reliability (I have encountered no X
> crashes at all during my heavy use for the last couple years ) of
> the Nouveau X driver for the NVidia graphics on my thin-client. So
> either AMD or Nouveau sound good, and I would be tempted to go with
> the Nouveau X driver for driving NVidia graphics because that is the
> one where I already have good experience. However, recently NVidia
> have become obstructive with the Nouveau project (see
> <https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Nouveau-XDC2017>).
> I have no idea if that is a temporary glitch in relations or signs
> of active obstruction that will continue for the forseeable future.
> But unless this issue is resolved quickly I will likely never buy
> NVidia again, and many others will likely do the same thing meaning
> overall interest in the Nouveau development will abruptly decrease.
> So we will see how it goes, but likely the choice will be AMD
> graphics.
>
> I am primarily interested in your recommendations for Linux high-end
> box builders, but debate over the above design characteristics would
> be interesting as well.
>
> Alan
> __________________________
> Alan W. Irwin
>
> Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
> University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
>
> Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
> implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
> Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
> software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
> (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
> and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
> __________________________
>
> Linux-powered Science
> __________________________
>
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