Joseph - You are one of those people who, if you have the time,
actually seeks to understand things as deeply as possible. Thus I
would be very interested in hearing what you have to say about Intel's
Hyperthreading. A long time ago (say 5-7 years ago on the P4) I too
had random issues but I never figured out what the root problem was,
only that turning off HT fixed the "issues". I have not see any issues
since then.
On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 11:07 PM, Joseph Sinclair
<
plug-discussion@stcaz.net> wrote:
> Nice to see an on-topic post; thanks Mike.
>
> ----
>
> Depends on what you want to learn and how stable you need it to be.
>
> For stable, I'd go with the latest Fedora, RHEL (and plan to upgrade to 6 when it's out), or Debian stable (should be out soon).
>
> For more learning-on-the-edge I'd try sidux (In fact I'm doing that on my laptop as soon as I have a few hours to run the install and tweak things).
> It's Debian Sid (not terribly stable bleeding-edge) with some cleanup to make it slightly less unstable, and a lot easier to install.
>
> The advantage:
> Absolute bleeding edge Debian with the latest kernel, drivers, software, etc...
> Debian!
> None of the *@&# Canonical and Gnome have dumped into Ubuntu that finally persuaded me it's not worth the effort.
> The Disadvantages:
> Not as stable as official Debian releases (although it's pretty close to the stability of Ubuntu or Fedora)
> Always updating, so you have to create your own "release cycle" by choosing when to update (which means watching the fora and updating when it's relatively stable, then cherry-picking only important updates between times).
> A lot less polished, so you'll have to learn a good bit more system administration and other tasks the newer GUI tools cover over in the more polished distros.
> If it breaks, it's your problem. DO NOT run sidux on a line-of-business system that can't be down for a few days if something goes wrong.
>
> ----
>
> My next system will probably be an AMD 1090T (Hexacore!) or an Opteron 12-core CPU (if I can afford that one). That is, unless a better CPU comes out between now and when I scrape together the cash for a new "big" system.
> I'll also probably load up 12G or more of RAM (the Opteron would support up to 64G, IIRC).
> I generally prefer the AMD chips, as they're a LOT cheaper per-core, and I've had a lot of issues with Hyperthreading in Intel chips actually slowing things down, but my workloads are not "normal", either.
>
> If I had $12K just laying around I'd probably pick up something like the server system here (http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/system/2U/2042/AS-2042G-6RF.cfm) with 4 12-core CPU, 128G RAM and 6 1TB drives (and do a bit of rewiring on the house to support the dual 1200W power supplies).
>
> ----
>
> As for what I'd recommend to someone NOT looking for a video processor/compilation workhorse/VM host:
>
> If you want a Gaming monstrosity, check out the i7 980x for Intel 6-core/12-thread bliss (although it costs $1000), and pair it with a nice quartet of high-end Radeon GPU's (like a pair of HD 5970 or 4 HD 5870 cards) in a crossfire setup.
> The slight edge in single-thread performance on the i7 makes a difference when building a rig for playing high-end video games, and for a high-end gaming rig, CPU price shouldn't be a major concern (especially if you intend to go whole-hog and enable maximum power-boost support with a phase-change cooling setup).
>
> ----
>
> If you want a true low-cost value system for 64-bit, however, try the new Intel Atom D510 for 64-bit dual-core at a seriously low power usage (13 watts, including graphics). It tops out, however, at 4G (and not all boards support that), so 64-bit is more for style than real need.
> For 1080p video playback, make sure to pick an ion2 system, although that will require running the NVidia binary blobs and adds a few watts to the power usage.
> Just don't try to run virtual machines on it, as it lacks VT-x support.
>
> ----
> ==Joseph++
>
> mike Enriquez wrote:
>> I am planning to build a dual boot workstation. It will a 64bit computer
>> with Windows 7 pro but I have yet to select a linux distro.
>> I am open to any suggestions. Which linux distro would you use. My only
>> requirement is that it further my linux education.
>> I am willing to try any Linux Distro in workstation or server version.
>>
>> Also what would you put into your 64 bit computer? I am planning to use
>> an i7 extreme processor on an MSI X58 pro-E motherboard. Ram is going to
>> be DDR3 1600 MHz.
>>
>> I am open to any ideas. Please send me your ideas.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Mike Enriquez
>> ---------------------------------------------------
>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list -
PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
(text/plain)