To Tux or not to Tux

[Steve Litt]

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.

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.


> 
> It's a 4 core machine and the user is not happy with the speed AND
> has complained of heat issues.  

Which would be expected given the excess dust. Was it too hot when new?

> This machine is VERY important.  He
> makes his living using apps on this machine. Downtime must be kept to
> a absolute minimum.  Apps are 50% Web based and 50% local WINDOWS
> ONLY software.
> 
> 
> 
> 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.

> 
> Alternate is to run pure win10 with ACRONIS for backup.

You could also run a VM guest for Mint on the Windows computer.
> 
> 
> 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.

> 
> 16Gb (4x4) G.SKILL Sniper Series 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3
> 14900)
> 
> AMD FX-8370 Black Edition 8 Core CPU Processor AM3+ 4300Mhz 125W 16MB
> 
> Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD  BOOT DRIVE

Excellent. Try to boot it with an MBR.

> 
> WD Black 7200 Rpm 1TB DATA drive

I've had great luck with WD Black. Why not go 3TB or 4TB? The price per
GB is much less. I think 3TB is the knee of the curve now.

> 
> Thermaltake Commander MS-I Snow Edition VN40006W2N No PS Mid Tower
> Case

This case restricts you to two 120mm top fans. Lately I've been
using 140mm fans. They're quiet, but keep the case cool.

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.

> 
> LG Electronics 14x Internal BDXL Blu-Ray Burner Rewriter WH14NS40

I've had good luck with Memorex BR-W. I don't use the slightly cheaper
LTH (Low to High). Be careful, because some BR-W media is junk. Be sure
your burner can burn DVD too. I've found DVD backups to be much more
reliable than Blu-ray, so use DVD for smaller backups.

[snip]

> THE QUESTION TO ALL OF YOU:   DOES THIS SEEM A VIABLE SOLUTION to YOU?

Yes, but I'd do a little more work to find the root cause of the
problems of the current Windows box.
 
SteveT

Steve Litt 
April 2016 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21