To Tux or not to Tux

[Wayne D]

On 04/19/2016 08:39 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Apr 2016 23:18:49 -0700
> Wayne D <waydavis at centurylink.net> wrote:
>
>> The EXISTING scenario:  Win 7 machine with stability issues that are
>> most likely due to a combination of gremlins that this user attracts
>> like dust to a mop over a period of 6 to 9 months of use.  Data
>> corruption is a possibility, Virii and other nasties  are most likely
>> lurking as well.  I suspect MUCH of it has been a result of internet
>> activity.
>
> But, unless you've done more tests than you mention here, the cause
> could be bad caps, or a bad RAM stick, or iffy disk drive, or an
> intermittent connection, or a single bad OS config setting, or
> temperature problems caused by the excessive dust you mention. Except
> for bad caps, these things could be fixed without purchasing a new
> machine, and if the current machine has kvm capability, you can still
> implement the software strategy you mention.

It has had problems since day one apparently.  MY fix for the old box, which will become his emergency fall-back- machine is to 
install a monster cpu cooler in it and upgrade all the fans in it.

> By the way, what I do every time I set a tower computer on the floor,
> is I set it on a 10" blank 3 or 4 inches higher than the floor, to
> lessen acquisition of carpet-dust.


THAT is actually a part of the issue - the machine's location IS in a space that could recirc some of the air.  THAT is going to stop.

>> It's a 4 core machine and the user is not happy with the speed AND
>> has complained of heat issues.
> >
>> MY solution:  Build a a new HYBRID machine that hardware for hardware
>> is a updated clone of my own primary machine.  Based on LinuxMINT
>> 17.3 Cinnamon and run win10 inside a VM for those apps that require
>> it and run chrome or Firefox for the web based stuff from the Linux
>> side..   Backups via clonezilla and copies of the vm file.
>
> Sounds good to me. I'd recommend Qemu rather than Virtualbox for the VM.


HMM, qemu???   Never heard of, or used it.   WHY is it better than virtualbox?


>> Alternate is to run pure win10 with ACRONIS for backup.
>
> You could also run a VM guest for Mint on the Windows computer.

I never considered that, only because it makes the core OS the one that is vulnerable to attack.


>> The new machine will consist of:
>> ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 8 x SATA 6GB/s USB
>> 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS (MILITARY GRADE MB)
>
> I'm not a fan of UEFI boot. Does this mobo have legacy boot so that you
> can boot to an MBR? On my box I boot to a 256GB SSD, with big >2TB
> spinning disks mounted on mountpoints on the SSD. MY /usr
> and /usr/local are on SSD, so they're fast, but there's very little
> write activity on my SSD. It's fast, and it's been running well for
> about a year.
>
> Some day UEFI might be good, but right now you hear too much about
> people bricking their mobos via interaction with their OS and the UEFI
> storage area, or Linux people doing rm -rf only to find out that
> included the mounted UEFI variable area.
>
> And then there's the whole Secure Boot fiasco. No problem if you use a
> major Linux that's purchased a key from Microsoft, but all bets are off
> if you compile your own kernel.


You really know how to pee on a parade... LOL   Ya, I'm cringing a little over this one.



> If I were going to get this case, I'd splurge for the optional 2nd
> 120mm top fan, and the optional 120mm front fan, and probably tape over
> the fan mount on the left side. And of course I'd mount my hard drives
> where the front fan blows on them, and try to keep distance between
> them.
>

Ya, I have three 120mm Noctua's in the build.   (I) am using the same setup but with a Arctic Freezer Xtreme Rev 2
I ran eight instances of BurnK6 loading all cores to 100%.   78 room temp, got to 122 and NO HIGHER on the cpu. A HUGE difference 
from the stock AMD fan setup.