AMD64 chipset Linux support ....

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Tue, 2006-07-11 at 23:40 -0500, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
> Oooohhhhhhh, you're just too kind :-).

Seriously William.  We had several threads on your issues with the i865
(as well as i845) month after month after month.  That wasn't even a
"professional/corporate desktop" chipsets, that's the i875.

I'm just trying to help you friend.

> When I say lightweight, I *mean* lightweight. NO public access,

What does "public" have _anything_ to do with it?
In fact, LAN I/O is typically far more intense.

> NO apache, NO DNS,

Apache and DNS typically have more to do with _computational_
performance.  If you're throwing files around on a LAN, that's I/O!

We've had this discussion before, when you've had compatibility and
performance issues.  Moving from an Intel i845/i865 (again, not even a
i875 that is tested for professional, desktop use -- and totally
ignoring the E72xx/75xx) to a ViA KT series is a _lateral_ move.

Again, referring back to your experience with the 694 -- back in the
late '90s, I used to replace i440BX/GX and 693/694 chipsets with
ServerSet IIIs -- often for ~$250.  A measly $100 more in the mainboard
makes _all_ the difference when you're spending $1K!

> NO several dozen users at any 1 time, just CPU, RAM, & code to run ad
> nauseum.

What is its function?

Again, why save $100 on a system that costs $500-1,000 anyway, when
another $100 will give you server performance and quality?

> It *will* live at runlevel 3,

When does "graphics" have _anything_ to do with "storage/communcation"
I/O?  William, I think this is where you keep missing the point, and why
you keep running into issue after issue on your systems.

I can't believe you've now taken all those issues and discussions we had
months ago with your issues and just thrown them out-the-window.  Spend
$175+ on an E72xx series mainboard for P4, or $235 for a HT1000 for
Opteron.

> but the server traits end there, for the most part. I was mostly
> asking about reasonably complete/stable Linux support for that
> chipset, decent %-age of full speed for RAM-intensive calculations,

Can you elaborate on the application?

> etc. e.g. good OS/chipset interaction for my somewhat truncated
> requirements.

Intel 72xx series hsa pretty much been the "Tier-1 PC OEM Gold Standard"
for P4 (as well as Xeon) for workstation/entry-level server for 3+ years
(and that's not looking at the new 5000 series which just came out a few
months ago).

On AMD, it's been either the aging AMD8000 series, or the 18 month
proven nForce Professional with the AMD8131/8132 added for PCI-X.  On
the low-end (single Socket-939), the ServerWorks HT1000 does the job for
kernel 2.6 just fine.

> Someone else (another list)

Yes, LUNA.

> indicated all was well, care to dispute that ?

Yes, I do!  And I responded to him as well!  It's clear he's used to
desktop uses as well.  Desktop I/O is _different_ than server I/O, even
just for a few clients.

William, you've had a _lot_ of issues that I've helped you with.  I
didn't mind, especially since you said didn't know about the E72xx/75xx
series prior.  And we discussed this at length.

But now you're going right back into the rut.  And you're going to run
into the same issues.  I honestly thought you really appreciated it when
we went into the i8xx/9xx v. E72xx/75xx series differences months back.

I guess not!  @-ppp

This isn't a "my way dammit" discussion.  This is me saying, "Hey,
remember all those issues you had?  I thought you weren't going to dot
hem again?"

Spend an extra $100.  It's damn worth it.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith          Professional, technical annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org    http://thebs413.blogspot.com
---------------------------------------------------------
The world is in need of solutions.  Unfortunately, people
seem to be more interested in blindly aligning themselves
with one of only two viewponts -- an "us v. them" debate
that has nothing to do with finding an actual solution.