Re: Powerful and Stable PC Configuration for Linux]

[Igor Zhidkov]

Hi! Ran Rubinstein wrote: Motherboard: I have excellent experience with intel small server-class motherboards for a similar task (running redhat 8.0 and now fedora, large memory, 100% cpu usage) The motherboards I used is the intel s845WD1. It has on-board ATI RAGE XL It seemes to be a good decision if the price is close to price of workstation motherboard. I've visited Intel's site and checked the entry-server board S875WP1-E  (http://www.intel.com/design/servers/s875wp1-e/index.htm?iid=ipp_srvr+mthrbds_s875wp1e_srvr&). But can you tell me the place (url/tel.no of company) in Israel, where I can see the price of it. And CAN this motherboard be bought without extra movements in Israel (ie not requiring to order it from Intel-Europe or abroad company reseller). Also, there is a question, whether this internal videocard support high resolutions. If not, then which card it's better to buy for work with high resolutions: at least good quality of 2D for 1600x1200x85.  3D is not critical. I was suggested to look at ATI Radeon 9000 as the last model of ATI, which is supported in Fedora. Are there any alternatives? I have a feeling the Asus boards is designed more for a gaming/overclocking experience, and is tuned to win in tests like 3dmark, quake framerates etc, not the stability test. I have same doubts also. Disks: Do yourself a favor a use raid 1 or raid 10. The motherboard I recommend has an onboard raid chip, but forget about it (at least on the 845, the 875 should have a SATA one) and use software raid. I had three disk failures in the past year, in all three the server continued to run smoothly thanks to raid 1. I'll think about this. As a matter of fact I was not planning to use either SCSI or RAID. I would prefer now to check, if such kind of demand will be among users. Because typically our user programs mostly occupy lots of CPU now, but do not intensively read/write something to Hard Drive. If needed, we can upgrade to RAID or SCSI easily imho (to buy another IDE for RAID or SCSI adapter + SCSI drive). Software: Consider using a *really* stable operating system (please no flames). I've had samba problems with Fedora, for example. Debian woody perhaps? You Actually, I was planning to upgrade to Fedora, because most of the machines now have RedHat installed. And I mostly used to work with RedHat and do not have much experience with other Linux flavors. May be I'll switch to another distributive, but not so quickly. Also test your software with intel's C compiler icc (free without support) - it could improve your performance. Good idea. Consider using a queueing software such as sun grid engine for users' jobs. We have generic NQS (http://www.gnqs.org/oldgnqs/). But sun grid engine seemes to be more advanced tool. Ok. After the suggestions, I've changed the configuration slightly (it's not the final configuration). About motherboard. if I do not succeed in getting a server-class mobo - what would you recommend as a proven to work solid (workstations P4 class)? CPU: PENTIUM IV 2.8 GHZ 512CACHE 800 MHz HT MotherBoard: ASUS P4P800 i865PE/DUAL DDR400/LAN Memory : 2 X 512 MB DDR 400 MHz Video Card: 128 MB ATI RADEON 9000 TVOUT AGP X8 HDD: Seagate 120GB/7200/8MB CACHE DVD-ROM: ASUS FDD 1.44": PANASONIC/SONY Case: Antec SX1040BII 400W Case UPS:.. Screen: 19" which one I did not decide yet - this also depends on the money limit we have. I want 19" Monitor: Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454,  but if we'll be more limited in money I would choose 19" Samsung 959NF Diamondtron. And in the worst case - 17' MAG 796FD-2    :)) I want to thank you and other people for helping in my choice! Bye-bye! Igor.