Powerful and Stable PC Configuration for Linux (Fedora)

J.B. Nicholson-Owens jbn at forestfield.org
Sun Feb 15 03:56:54 UTC 2004


Igor Zhidkov wrote:
> MotherBoard: ASUS P4P800 i865PE/DUAL DDR400/LAN

I don't know what chipset this mainboard uses, but it's common to use
Realtek controllers.  Realtek chipset ethernet hardware gets the job done,
they're inexpensive, and supported with free software.  They work right
away, and they're plug-and-play.  But they hog the bus and drive up the CPU
load during transfer (no matter what OS you run, probably).  I've seen them
behave similarly on Microsoft Windows systems too.  Realtek ethernet
hardware is best for low-volume/low-cost setups like homes on cable modem or
xDSL.

If you're going to be transferring large amounts of data back and forth,
I've read that some 3Com cards are far better choices.
http://www.fefe.de/linuxeth/ has info on "Choosing an Ethernet NIC for Linux
2.4".  The advice is probably still true for version 2.6 of the Linux
kernal.

> Video Card: 128 MB ATI RADEON 9200 TVOUT AGP X8

I know that the ATI Radeon 9000 AGP with or without TV out is plug-and-play
in Fedora Core 1.  It works well with the 3D video games and there's no need
to acquire extra drivers.  I can't say whether the 9200 is the same story.

> Please suggest me any changes which can increase stability of the the 
> configuration during long-time 100% load. Or give an examples of PC 
> configurations you've purchased recently.

I'd go for a RAID setup of multiple IDE drives.  I've had great experiences
(they're fast, stable, rackmountable, redundantly powered) with
RAIDWeb.com's IDE units, but they are not cheap.  I don't know how much more
money you're willing to spend on RAID (or how much HD space you really
need).  This approach would also require a SCSI card, but a good one is
fairly inexpensive.  RAIDWeb.com's boxes are platform and OS independant, so
you can plug it into any machine with a suitable SCSI port and use it. Maybe
you could pool your funds with other people and buy one unit then share all
the extra storage space you'll gain.

> My another thought is to buy the same configuration, but assembled by 
> some of "brands" like HP - i.e. to order HP brand computer with the same 
> configuration as shown above. As I know, brand name assembled PC 
> computers usually are more stable - isn't it ?

My experience is that with brand name turnkey systems, you risk paying for a
Microsoft Windows license you don't need (but you can get a refund on that
if you're willing to go through the hassle) and you are buying service if
something on the machine fails.  This can be important for a laptop if
someone doesn't know how to operate on them, but all the desktop machines
I've built work reliably for years afterwards.

Good luck.





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